


We Could Take To The Highway

by skyline



Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: M/M, Road Trips, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wanted Kendall to stop being homesick for a place that was so godforsaken cold that James had actually snowshoed his way to school more than once. He wanted his friend to stop longing for girls who thought plaid was the height of fashion and teachers who thought teaching evolution rather than creationism was optional and parties that were really glorified keggers. He wanted Kendall to see how much better California was, because everyone here was shiny and happy and maybe a little plastic, but who cared?</p>
<p>Most of all, he just didn't want Kendall to leave him all alone for an entire season, because they'd been friends since forever and they'd probably never spent more than a month apart.</p>
<p>But he wasn't a crappy friend. He wasn't going to be selfish anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As Morning Turned Into California

The first time it happened had been an accident.  
  
James hadn't _meant_ to drink all that liquor. How was he supposed to know that someone had spiked the punch with cognac? Who even thought cognac was an appropriate punch-spiking-drink, anyway? When it was all coming back up his throat, he found himself wishing fervently that it had been vodka, or rum, or some kind of normal alcoholic beverage that wouldn't have tasted nearly so sickly sweet when regurgitated.  
  
Bastards and their fucking hoity toity cognac.  
  
Really, that night was mostly a blur. They'd been on tour, except it was like, a prelim tour. Their real tour was scheduled for the summer, when Rocque Records would inevitably decide they were famous enough to actually spring more than a couple grand for their marketing campaign. This was just- like a demo, to see if Big Time Rush could impress a few small town bumpkins and the occasional city club full of hazy-eyed waifs who fancied themselves indie-intellectual types. The kind of people who wouldn't even _dream_ of fangirling (or fanboying, as being in a boy band tended to draw out those poor guys who were integrating embarrassing musical choices into their search for their sexual identity) over four boys doing synchronized dance moves.  
  
Of course, James had always known they'd be impressive.  
  
He and his friends were _always_ impressive. It was one of the things he liked best about them.  
  
'Cause seriously, no way would he hang out with losers who didn't know how to shine like stars, even if he'd never imagined they'd all end up- well, as stars. He'd kind of pictured a different sort of life, to be frank. Maybe he'd even fantasized he'd outshine all of them, and end up having to buy them mansions and Maseratis for their birthdays so that they'd bow down to him to worship him like the benevolent boy-deity he was.  
  
But this whole group thing, it was good too.  
  
Anyway, he hadn't worried that the preliminary tour was somehow going to impact his career. He'd played up the stress of course, because James's role amongst his friends was to be the Dramatic One, the one who was so over-the-top that it invoked laughter, even in times of crisis. He was damn good at his role. Still, inside, he knew. They were almost there, almost Big Time.  
  
Which might be why he'd allowed himself to get drunk.  
  
After the first few drinks when the edges of the room started to soften, he figured out the punch was a little more than puréed Hawaiian fruit. He wasn't _stupid,_ god. It just tasted so damned good. Which, okay, he realized when he was worshipping at the shrine-of-porcelain-and-miscellaneous-un

identifiable-grime in their hotel room that he'd made a miscalculation when it came to the actual amount he'd consumed. He might not have been stupid, but he also wasn't Logan; math wasn't his thing.

At the time though, he'd been having fun, he'd been enjoying the perks of being so-close-to-famous, and things like consequences hadn't mattered so much. Which might explain why, after all that alcohol, he'd let himself stumble, soppy and drunk, right into Kendall's arms outside the club.

"Dude," Kendall had laughed, trying to keep him upright, "You're so fucking trashed."

James had laughed like he had a secret and whispered, "I know."

Kendall had been outside because he was chatting up some nameless girl who was smoking, which was something James thought looked cool but had kind of seemed detrimental to his hockey-playing and of course, his singing. He'd tried it, once, twice, or maybe thirty times while at parties. He smoked socially, sure. But mostly he stayed away, because he had the tendency to be easily addicted to things, like hair gel, and he didn't want to add any more addictions to his list. Especially not one that would have Logan rattling off mortality rates to him every time he lit up.

"Give me one," he requested of the girl, who was sort of hipster chic and not at all impressed with the way James was hanging all over his best friend.

She obliged though, maybe because she was scared he'd hang around and puke on her shoes. He wasn't even close to puking right then, and wouldn't be until the morning, when the sun burned holes through his eyelids and the entire world was touched with vertigo.

Kendall was amused by James's attempt to light the cigarette, eventually taking over and cupping a steady hand over the flame while James breathed in.

"You know those things will kill you," he observed mockingly, brushing dark blond bangs from his mischievous eyes.

Kendall had great eyes. Sometimes James wished his eyes were as cool as Kendall's, even though he had perfectly good eyes, so good that they got compliments when he was just walking down the street.

"I'm pretty sure if I died right now, I'd die happy," James replied, taking smoke into his lungs and holding it there, even though that wasn't really how it was done. He liked the burn of it, the way it stole the oxygen from his head and made him dizzy in a different way than the alcohol, in a way that made his knees go weak.

Kendall laughed. He laughed a lot, which was really one of the greatest things about Kendall, and snatched the cigarette away, which sucked. Then he started puffing on it, which was kind of okay. James didn't mind sharing. He'd gotten an 'A' on it in kindergarten and everything.

Standing side by side, inhaling a cloud of carcinogens beneath the smoggy sky reminded him of when they were fourteen, and would sneak James's dad's cigarettes on the slanted roof of his house. They'd been able to climb out of James's window, up and up onto the slate gray tile. There they'd lay sprawled on their backs, at one with the trees and the sky and the stars.

"Do you think we're going to make it? Big Time Rush, I mean," Kendall asked, staring out into the blackness of the alley they stood in. As far as alleys went, it was alright, with red brick and black asphalt and the whisper-crunch of garbage underfoot. Plus it kind of smelled like raw sewage, but James thought that was typical of most alleys.

"Duh," James replied in a self-satisfied tone, "Have you heard us? We rock."

"Oh," Kendall said, and James wasn't sure if it was a happy 'oh' or a sad 'oh', but there was definitely something melancholy in his tone. Kendall _obviously_ hadn't had enough punch.

"Don't worry," James murmured, purposely misinterpreting the 'cause of whatever it was Kendall was going through, because he was three sheets to the wind and decidedly too drunk for a serious conversation, "Just because those girls in Pop Tiger magazine voted that you had the most unattractive eyebrows doesn't mean they think you're the worst of us. I mean, Logan still can't sing or dance. And hey, you beat Joe Jonas!"

"Um," Kendall cracked a smile, his lips curving over the yellow filter of the cigarette, "Thanks, I think."

James nodded sagely, "You should thank me. I'm awesome. Someone needs to appreciate that."

"Oh, I appreciate it."

"Are you sure, Kendall? Because I don't think you do," the taller boy challenged, thinking it was all in good fun.

Only, good fun didn't usually involve standing so close to his friend that their noses touched. Kendall's eyes darted up, meeting James's devilishly, "I guess I'll have to prove it then."

James wasn't really occupied by the funniness of the situation anymore. The cigarette rest between his fingers, burning slowly away so that he could feel the heat as it neared his skin. Kendall's breath brushed his lips, and that weak kneed feeling was sort of taking over, so much so that James lost his balance. At the exact same moment, the cigarette burned all the way down to the filter, blistering his fingers.

His mouth parted in surprise as he tripped forward, dropping the offending object, and suddenly, Kendall was- kissing him.

For a second, he turned cold. His spine and his ribcage felt frozen, gripping his heart in ice. It was like ghostly fingers were trailing along his body, and he couldn't fucking breathe.

Then, suddenly, it was okay. He didn't understand it, but James was of the opinion that you didn't need to understand something to appreciate it, like fine art.

And he kind of really appreciated Kendall's mouth on his.

He wasn't sure if it was the warmth that flooded in after the chill departed, or if it was the fact that Kendall was a fucking artiste with his tongue, but it didn't really matter. He kissed back.

If someone had asked, he would have sworn there was nothing else he could do.

They broke for air, and Kendall's eyes were darker than James had ever seen them, all pupil, like an animal. He was fisting the front of James's jacket, which was genuine Italian leather and extremely expensive, but James couldn't figure out how to make his throat work to tell his friend he had to let go.

He didn't _want_ Kendall to let go, because he was certain that grip on his jacket was the only thing keeping James standing.

"I- uh. Okay," James said, pleased that he'd managed to form actual words instead of guttural sounds, even though he hadn't actually _said_ anything at all.

Kendall patted his cheek and glanced around for the cigarette. He was a little dismayed to see the butt burnt out on the ground, but when he met James's eyes again, he was all smiles.

"You're right, you know. We _do_ rock. We should get back in there and make sure everyone knows it."

For the first time in his life, James didn't want to mingle. He wanted to know what the hell had just happened. He wanted to know if there was a meaning in that kiss, the way there was meaning in music lyrics or poetry, the way girls defined it and he never had.

But he was drunk, and Kendall was smiling so brightly it hurt, and a tiny, dark part of him murmured that there was no way that could Ever Happen Again.

So he nodded and he said, "You're right. But first, dude, you have _got_ to try the punch."  


\---  
  
That had been years ago. Well, a year and a half ago, actually, but it had been the longest year and a half of James's life.

For one thing, they were famous. James's biggest dream had come true. He couldn't walk down a side street in California without being barraged by screaming girls and paparazzi. They'd done two national and one world tour. He'd been to freaking Japan. James Diamond, who'd never even left mother fucking Minnesota had now been to _Japan_. It was like, a miracle.

One that Kendall had made happen.

James was completely aware that he owed everything to his best friend. Everything.

He was also completely aware that Kendall was pretty much the best kisser in the entire universe, but he tried not to think about it. When he thought about it, things got sticky.

Things that included his sheets.

This was also something he tried not to think about.

Anyway, a year and a half was a frickin' long time. Even aside from the paparazzi, James was perfectly aware that if they were still in Minnesota, they'd be entering their final spring as high schoolers. Here, their education was a little further behind. World tours tended to slow down the learning process. At least, for most of them.

Logan had already gotten his GED, because Logan was too intelligent for his own good.

Plus, aside from the popstar thing, they were all starting to get their own side careers. James had landed a few modeling campaigns. Carlos had gotten guest spots on a few sitcoms. Logan was taking online university courses. Premed, of course. They were all doing their own thing.

Except for Kendall.

It bothered James. A lot.

On their days off, he'd come back from a casting call to find Kendall stretched across their couch playing video games, or lounging poolside in the backyard, or being generally non-productive. They didn't live at the Palmwoods anymore, since they'd gone from future-famous to actually famous, and even though their new, studio gifted mansion was amazing, James felt the emptiness of it sucker punch him in the gut on days like that.

Mrs. Knight and Katie had stayed back in the hotel, where Katie could keep up with her Palmwoods classes and her auditions. James thought maybe their absence hurt Kendall even more.

He tried talking to Logan about it, once.

"We need to get Kendall out of his slump," he proclaimed, sprawling across Logan's bed while Logan pored over some book on advanced molecular biology.

"Kendall's in a slump?" Logan queried, not even looking up from the thick pages of text.

"Um. Yes. You haven't noticed?"

"I've been kind of busy lately. I have an exam on organic chemistry coming up and-"

"How can you even take a chemistry exam online? Shouldn't there be like, laboratories for that?"

"They're holding a practical at the community college," Logan retorted, annoyed, "That's what I have to study for."

"But- dude, it hasn't just been this month. Or last month. He's been like this all year."

"Like what? James, Kendall's being Kendall. It's not a big deal."

"It is," James insisted, "Doesn't it bother you that he never leaves unless it's for food or the studio?"

"Or parties," Logan added.

"Or parties," James amended.

"Or dates."

"That too."

"Or going to the beach, or driving up the coast, or taking Carlos to Disneyland, or taking you to Sea World, or-"

"Okay. I get it. He goes out. I'm just- doesn't he seem sad to you, sometimes?"

"I think all the chemicals you put in your hair are getting to your brain. Kendall's _fine_."

James's hand flew to his head, "I do not put chemicals anywhere near- wait, do you think that could happen?"

Logan ignored him.

Point was, that talk had been completely unhelpful. James remained convinced that Kendall was suffering some kind of depression that was totally unworthy of the fame and fortune Big Time Rush had been gifted with. He still smiled twenty four seven, and he still had that fantastic laugh, but James knew. Something was missing from Kendall's eyes, and if James maybe had an inkling of what it was, he didn't let himself think about it. It was just one more thing on the list.

The list that included that kiss.

He did so well, not thinking about any of it. For a long time.

So goddamned well, that when James maybe, totally accidentally, eavesdropped on Kendall the day their old hockey coach called, the memory of the kiss that was kind of branded in his mind took him by surprise. The recollection that maybe Kendall had been moping around their fabulous California mansion because he was homesick for Minnesota overwhelmed him.

And he couldn't _not_ think about it anymore, because their coach was saying softly, a thousand miles away, "Son, you were the best center we ever had. We won't make it without you."

All James could hear was Kendall's soft breath on the other line. He could practically feel the indecision his friend was experiencing, even though James was in the kitchen three floors down from Kendall's bedroom.

Finally, Kendall said, "I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking," their former coach responded, hanging up.

Kendall was going to _think about it_. The one thing James hadn't been able to do, because thinking stressed him out and gave him zits and made his hair greasy and unfit for performances.

Only, if he'd thought about it before, maybe he'd actually know what to do now. What to say, when Kendall walked into the kitchen searching for a bowl to pour his Lucky Charms in.

He might have said something a hell of a lot more eloquent than, "You should do it."

"Excuse me?" Kendall's lips twisted at the corners, his brow furrowing.

"Go back to Minnesota. Play for our team," James explained, and Kendall didn't exactly look delighted to find out his best friend had been listening in on that conversation, "We don't have another tour until the summer, and the new album's already been laid down. There's no reason you have to stay here."

"James-"

"You always said your dream was to play for the Wild, and you gave that up so I could have my dream, and I do, and it's great, dude, but- this? It's an opportunity to have your dream back."

"My dream is being here, with you guys."

"And you have been. You are. You still can- but there's going to be college recruiters there."

"James-"

"College recruiters, who are going to see how awesome you are, and seriously, on top of it all you're famous, so colleges are going to be chomping at their bits to get you anyway," James continued.

"James-"

"This way you get to choose who chooses you, really-"

"James!"

"God, what? You don't have to yell."

Kendall, bless his soul, was staring at him like he'd lost his mind, "You really want me to go? Spend the season in Minnesota?"

James thought about it.

No, he actually didn't want Kendall to go anywhere. He wanted him to stop being homesick for a place that was so godforsaken cold that James had actually snowshoed his way to school more than once. He wanted his friend to stop longing for girls who thought plaid was the height of fashion and teachers who thought teaching evolution rather than creationism was optional and parties that were really glorified keggers. He wanted Kendall to see how much better California was, because everyone here was shiny and happy and maybe a little plastic, but who cared?

Most of all, he just didn't want Kendall to leave him all alone for an entire season, because they'd been friends since forever and they'd probably never spent more than a month apart.

But he wasn't a crappy friend. He wasn't going to be selfish anymore.

"Yeah. Don't you think it's time to live for yourself? Even just a little?"

Kendall scrutinized his face, quiet, not answering.

A glint of silver caught James's eyes from the opposite end of the counter. His car keys. He'd gotten his California state license the previous summer, right after their tour.

Maybe he could be just a _little_ selfish.

"I'll even drive you there."  



	2. Ghosts And Clouds And Nameless Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James was struck by such love for his friends then, the kind that made him feel too much, like he was overflowing, unable to stop, unsure if he wanted to. It hurt, and it was painful, but it was so, so good. Even if it was only for a little while, he was going to miss them.

"Drive me? Uh, you _do_ know I can take a plane?" Kendall shifted awkwardly, pajama bottoms low on his hips, his hoodie unzipped and exposing the long, tan lines of his chest. It was nearly four in the afternoon, and he still wasn't dressed. James became even more certain that this was a Good Idea.  
  
Exasperated, he replied, "You _could_ fly there, but dude, this will be so much better. We've never had a roadtrip before. It'll be fun."  
  
"Fun," Kendall repeated dubiously, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth in a way that was really, really distracting, "Yeah. I guess."  
  
"Your enthusiasm is killing me," James groaned, hamming it up to get Kendall to smile, to make him stop doing that _thing_ with his mouth. It worked.  
  
"Fine. D'you think," Kendall began, and then paused, mulling over his words before saying, "Should we tell Logan and Carlos to pack their stuff?"  
  
Shit. Logan. Carlos. James had kind of forgotten about them. Which was weird, because every decision he'd made in the past decade, good or bad, had depended on approval from the two smaller boys and Kendall. They were his best friends, and they'd been with him every step of the way, no matter what.  
  
Only, he didn't want them taking part in this decision. The way he saw it, Logan had already had his chance, and had chosen compounds and chemicals over Kendall's twenty four seven mope-age. Carlos; well, James hadn't really given him an opportunity to weigh in because Carlos and serious business didn't really mix, but he'd just started that new sitcom, and he was contractually obliged to do at least three episodes, and James didn't want to drag him away from that.  
  
Or maybe James just didn't want to share the last few days Kendall spent between here and Minnesota with them. Maybe he wanted to keep Kendall all to himself.  
  
Same diff.  
  
"You know what? Let me break it to them."  
  
"James, if I'm going to take up coach's offer, I've got to let them know," Kendall said shrewdly, like he could see inside James's brain right down to all his nefarious thoughts.  
  
"Duh. I just- think that it might be easier for them to adjust if you let me talk to them first. You know, so you don't have to go through all the awkward arguments and-"  
  
"You think there's going to be arguments?"  
  
"Well…no. Just let me talk to them, would you? Please."  
  
"Fine," Kendall shrugged, grabbing an apple from the fridge and biting into it, his lips molding to the shiny red skin. Hypnotized, James watched him chew, swallow, the bob of his Adam's apple and the twist of his mouth as he finished, "If it's that important to you."  
  
\---  
  
"Please, please, please don't come!" James wailed, on his knees, clinging tightly to Logan's right leg and Carlos's left."Dude, no way. I love road trips," Carlos responded conversationally, snacking on a banana and completely unbothered by the fact that James had his thigh in a death grip.  
  
"Anyway, we should all be there for Kendall," Logan added, trying to shake his ankle in hopes of forcing James off, "This can't have been an easy decision for him."  
  
"Oh, now you care," James muttered darkly against Logan's denim clad knee.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean? Of course I care. I've always cared!" Logan screeched indignantly, pounding his fist down on James's head in an attempt to make him let go. He hit like a girl, but James knew his hair was getting all sweaty and knotted. He was so going to regret this.  
  
Still, he had to do it. He wouldn't release his hold on his two best friends, not until they gave him their word.  
  
"Funny, 'cause when I came to talk to you about it, you were all, no James, I have an organic chemistry test at the community college."  
  
"That? You're pissed about that? Geez, I thought you were making that shit up."  
  
"I don't make things up, _Logan_ ," James countered, now the offended party. He squeezed the shorter boy's knee extra hard for emphasis.  
  
"Pssh, yeah you do," Carlos snorted, "Remember that time you told me that the Sims twins only liked surfers, and I tried to learn how and practically _drowned_? And then it turned out they're scared of salt water?"  
  
Logan piped in, "Or that time you told me our photo shoot for GQ was going to be in full hockey gear, so it would look _manly_ , and I showed up in our old team's uniform and-"  
  
"Okay, fine!" James interrupted, flushing, "Sometimes I make stuff up. But not about Kendall!"  
  
"That's true, dude," Carlos agreed in a casual tone, "He is sporting a _massive boner_ for Kendall."  
  
"Excuse me?" James squeaked, completely mortified. How did he know? Not that James was, because he didn't even _think_ about Kendall that way, because he wouldn't let himself- but if he had been, and if that had been affecting his cock in a certain way then- how the _fuck_ did Carlos know?  
  
"Ha," Carlos pounded the fist holding the banana in one hand and pointed at James, "Look at this fucker's face! I told you he did. You owe me twenty bucks."  
  
Logan scowled, "Fine. Whatever."  
  
James watched as Logan began digging around in his back pocket for his wallet, all the while stricken with this terrifying, intensely nauseating feeling, "You guys were- betting? On me?"  
  
"No. We were betting on what gets your dick hard. Entirely different ballgame, man. We would never bet on just you. Too predictable."  
Logan elbowed Carlos and pointed to James's face, which had turned an unattractive shade of red, "Stop it. Never antagonize someone's who's this close to your balls."  
  
James considered biting one of them on the thigh because he had no free hands, but he figured it wouldn't help his 'I'm-not-gay-for-Kendall' plea, and besides, he was pretty sure Carlos had been wearing the same exact jeans for practically a week, and Logan might pull his hair, because he obviously didn't care if James went prematurely bald. Like that wouldn't affect their career as international pop stars.  
  
"Look," he tried to ignore the fact that Logan was passing Carlos a crisp twenty, "I don't have a 'massive boner' for Kendall."  
  
"You so do, dude."  
  
"Carlos! God, no I don't!"  
  
"You're protesting a lot," Logan observed, wiggling his ankle again, trying to escape.  
  
"Do you not pay any attention to my life? I dated that supermodel for like, a year!"  
  
Logan grinned, "And then you broke up with her when Kendall called her a bitch."  
  
"I- that was _not_ the reason."  
  
"Except it really was."  
  
"You guys are jerks."  
  
"Eh," Carlos shrugged, "We've been called worse."  
  
James decided it wasn't worth it trying to convince them that he wasn't gay. The last thing he needed to do was slip up and let on that he'd kissed Kendall back before their tour. Plus, if Carlos and Logan thought he had a valid reason for wanting to spend extra time with their friend, wouldn't it help his cause?  
  
"Please don't come," he said again, his voice low and quiet. He loosened his hold on their knees, although he didn't let go altogether, "It's really, really important to me."  
  
Carlos and Logan exchanged measured looks and chorused, "Fine."  
  
"But we're having a going away party for him," Logan added.  
  
"I don't get why he wants to leave anyway. Who would leave this for _Minnesota_?"  
  
James released their legs and said scathingly, "You're right. I can't imagine _anyone_ wanting to get away from you two."  
  
In hindsight, that might have been the reason Carlos tackled him to the ground so Logan could launch into the longest tickling barrage any of them had seen in years.  
  
\---  
  
Kendall's going away party should've been a huge affair. James prided himself on throwing the best Hollywood shindigs; blasting music, fantastic munchies, and the hottest girls. Usually, roping Carlos into party planning and inviting his myriad of freakish friends and attractive flirtations wasn't a problem, but for this, Logan had put his foot down."He's not going to want a huge party guys."  
  
"It's Kendall. He loves parties," James protested, trying to make Logan see reason. What kind of international superstars would they be if they didn't have hella cool soirees?  
  
"He does," Logan admitted, "But he's not going to want to make a big deal out of this. If we bring a ton of people-"  
  
"A gazillion," Carlos interrupted, excited at the prospect of booze, babes, and miniature hotdogs, "We're going to invite a gazillion people."  
  
"Gazillion isn't a number," Logan snapped, "It's fictitious."  
  
"Dude, it is _so_ a number."  
  
"Is not."  
  
"Guys!" James jumped in, "Get to the point before Kendall wakes up."  
  
They were all crowded on the couch while the _most beautiful television in the whole wide world_ blared a Dodgers game that none of them were paying attention to. They just kept it on because they liked the sound of all the cheering fans; it kept them amped up and creative.  
  
"What I'm saying is if some random nobody leaks this to the press before Kendall's ready, he's going to have to answer a bunch of really uncomfortable questions. We can't do that to him."  
  
Logan had a point. Which is why they ended up at some tiny, no-name hookah bar so far out of LA they might as well have been in San Dimas. James kept waiting for tumbleweeds to pass by. It wasn't glamorous, glitzy, home to celebrities or future-famous. Heck, it wasn't even home to people who even thought about being famous, except for that one girl in the corner who dressed like a burlesque dancer out on her dinner break.  
  
They each had allowed themselves one guest each, because the more people they told, the harder the secret would be to keep. Kendall approved.  
  
He brought Jo, who wore light brown cowboy boots and a silvery dress that clung to her figure like a wet swimsuit. She was breathtaking, and James knew Kendall would be watching her all night. Even if she hadn't been gorgeous, for Kendall, Jo was the One Who Got Away.  
  
Logan brought Camille. Although they had tried dating a few years back and failed so miserably that Kendall, James, Carlos, and most of the record label had been required to stage an intervention, somehow the two had managed to overcome it and become close friends. James didn't mind; he liked Camille. She understood what it was like to be an _artiste_ in a town full of people who thought acting involved little more than sleeping with the right casting couch director. She never compromised her integrity to get what she wanted, and she always made him laugh. He'd thought about dating her a few years ago, but then Logan had happened, and besides, James's type was taller. Blonder.  
  
He dated a lot of supermodels.  
  
None of them liked hockey.  
  
This was a major character flaw. Plus, he hated when they had nicer hair than he did.  
  
In his mind, his perfect girl had messy, sandy blond- er, blonde, hair and a mischievous smile. And okay, sometimes in his fantasies that smile had a chipped incisor, just barely noticeable, kind of like Kendall had all through freshman year of high school from a rough game. He'd gotten it fixed just before they'd been picked up by Rocque Records, but James had always liked the look on him. It made him seem…feral.  
  
Not that he thought about Kendall's mouth a lot. Or ever.  
  
Carlos had brought Kelly, because even though he had kind of, inexplicably metamorphosed from dorktastic daredevil to ladies' man overnight, he thought inviting the girl who'd helped them find fame would be a Nice Thing To Do.  
  
Which had left James to invite Gustavo. Who had turned him down, because their record producer didn't support Kendall leaving for half a year _or_ the band charring their lungs with smoke, and besides, why would he want to spend a perfectly good Friday night with _dogs_? So James had brought one of their backup dancers instead, a girl he'd made friends with on their last tour. She wasn't as pretty as James, but few people were.  
  
Before they'd come, Carlos had tucked bottles of beer in James's messenger bag that clinked with every step he'd taken, making him nervous that somewhere along the cracked, pitted sidewalk he'd be stopped by a policeman who wouldn't care that he was an pop sensation.  
  
He was just barely nineteen, and twenty one still felt miles, eons away.  
  
Now, inside the smoky, enchanted bar he saw local college students who'd had the same idea Carlos had, clutching red cups in their hands so that the condensation made them look sweaty-palmed and covetous.  
  
They ordered their hookahs, exotic flavors that rolled over James's throat and made his lungs feel sickly. Kelly was blowing rings, too practiced for any executive assistant that didn't have some secret bad girl past, but when they asked her about it, she just smiled.  
  
"I can do that," Jo murmured to Kendall, and James leaned in to eavesdrop.  
  
"Seriously?"  
  
"Pie," she grinned.  
  
"What?" Kendall asked.  
  
Carlos jumped in, "There's pie?"  
  
"There's no pie," Camille laughed.  
  
"Then why'd she say there was?" Carlos whined.  
  
"Pie," Camille repeated, "As in, easy as?"  
  
"I don't get it," Carlos deadpanned. James stepped on his foot.  
  
He liked hookah. More than smoking a cigarette, it made him feel like a dragon, like he could breathe fire or ice or color, give it a shape, like a song. But he couldn't do anything fancy. Jo breathed in and it seemed like every exhalation she took emerged in the form of a mystical creature, unicorns and dragons and griffins made of smoke, sphinxes with unfolded wings and sweet faced mermaids that looked like they might stick in his throat if he inhaled them, like they might sweetly asphyxiate them all. Kendall was hypnotized. She was a sorceress, demanding his attention with her magic spells and her too-prominent beauty.  
  
James hated her a little for that, but the backup dancer at his side was warm and the smoke thick in his lungs made him feel like a carnival fire breather, invincible and burning, and the beer made everything sparkle. He'd let Jo have this small victory, he decided. She could work her magic one last night, whisper quiet, giggly incantations in Kendall's ear.  
  
Every once in a while he would catch Carlos or Logan staring at him knowingly, like his barely concealed tolerance for Jo's presence was something tangible, an emotion they could see in the air, interlaced among the smoke-shapes. Mostly Logan, because he had a habit of being nosy.  
  
James avoided getting pulled into a conversation with the smaller boy, because he also had a habit of being _bossy._  
  
Only, Camille insisted on being social. The bitch.  
  
"Hey," she nudged James with her foot, "What's going on with you?"  
  
"Nothing," he said. She caught him in her warm, slightly disapproving gaze and he faltered, "Everything."  
  
"How d'you mean?" she smiled, encouraging, _annoying._ Like sticking her stupid face in his business was her prerogative or something. He could see Logan leaning in, slinging his arm around her shoulder in his peripheral vision, attempting to subtly eavesdrop.  
  
He was so _not_ subtle.  
  
"It's just- change. I'm not so good with change."  
  
"Understatement," Logan snorted, whispering in Camille's ear, "The last time they changed the ingredients in his designer hair gel he spazzed for an entire week."  
  
"I did not," James replied clearly, making sure each word was coated with an icy edge.  
  
Logan rolled his eyes, enunciating, "Did. Too."  
  
"Before you two start bickering like toddlers, maybe we could just agree to disagree on this one?" Camille suggested, maintaining her bright, placid smile. James wasn't fooled. Her tone of voice suggested beneath the expression her teeth were gritted, which was really more her style.  
  
Camille had a wicked temper, which was probably one of her more attractive traits. Girls with fire like that were few and far between.  
  
Fear darted across Logan's face, and he immediately squeaked, "Uh, okay."  
  
James shrugged noncommittally. He hadn't dated the girl for over a year, or allowed her to systematically castrate his man parts the way Logan had. Just because she was pissed, he wouldn't tuck his tail between his legs.  
  
Although, better safe than sorry.  
  
"I thought you supported the whole thing," she waved a hand vaguely in the smoky air, "Aren't you the one who gave Kendall the whole follow your dreams spiel? That's the way I heard it."  
  
"Well, yeah."  
  
"Care to elaborate?"  
  
He frowned. If he wanted a therapist, he would dish out the cash for one. It wasn't like he couldn't afford it, "Not really. No."  
  
This time no matter how much she glowered, he refused to care. Wasn't this a party? The backup dancer murmured something about Camille being pushy, something catty that made James snort in his drink and Logan choke on his double apple hookah. Camille looked like she wanted nothing more than to sink her claws into the rail thin girl; they 'd never gotten along very well.  
  
Kendall, Carlos, and Jo were in their own little world, using the red cups and some soapy mixture to blow bubbles with smoke, like prisms filled with an oracular haze.  
  
As the night teetered on toward the brink of dawn, Jo and Kendall got closer and closer. At one point James turned, and all he could see was the way they were almost touching, but not quite.  
  
Suddenly, the party stopped being fun. He decided it was time to go home.  
  
\---  
  
The next morning found James shoving suitcases in the back of his beat up old Saab. He had a whole garage full of nice automobiles, even a Maserati, but this was his baby. This was the car his parents had banded together to buy him when he first got his California license, despite the fact that they were dead broke and that after the divorce they barely even spoke. The car had sentimental value, more than any high priced sports car ever could.Plus he wasn't going to take the Maserati anywhere that require snow tires.  
  
"All set to go?" Logan grinned at him from the garage.  
  
"Yep. Kendall's finishing up breakfast and then we're hitting the road."  
  
"I'm going to miss you guys!" Carlos popped out from behind Logan, his eyes larger than a puppy dog's. He barreled toward his taller friend and threw his arms around James's waist forcefully, pinning him into the metal of his car.  
  
"Carlos- can't- breathe," James gasped, and Logan had to pry the smaller boy off of him. When he succeeded, they both saw that Carlos was close to tears.  
  
"I haven't been away from you both for more than a week, ever," Carlos complained, sniffing.  
  
"Me either," Logan said quietly, albeit more composed.  
  
James was struck by such love for his friends then, the kind that made him feel _too much_ , like he was overflowing, unable to stop, unsure if he wanted to. It hurt, and it was painful, but it was so, so good. Even if it was only for a little while, he was going to miss them.  
  
Logan, who would wander out of their mansion's study after hours with a book looking like he'd just been ripped apart, like he'd never be whole again. He'd walk around for an entire day with this- soulless expression, liked what he'd just read had drained him dry and then poof! Normal Logan would return, sunshine and rainbows and a _survivor._ James loved that words could do that to his friend, even if James had never experienced it himself.  
  
Carlos, who couldn't be left to his own devices for a day without building something from scratch, like he had this driving need to create skate ramps and outdoor Jacuzzis, anything and everything, all out of nothing. He would work and work and work and play, play, play only to scrap the whole project when he was done, like he had no choice but to destroy everything he made, because nothing would ever be good enough, solid enough, extreme enough. Because he knew everything he did always had the potential to be _better_ , and Carlos wouldn't give up until it was. In the magazines, they never pinned Big Time Rush's resident comedian as a perfectionist, but James knew he was, and it made him love the smaller boy. It made him certain that he'd be driving along some distant highway past skeletal buildings of lumber and rust when Carlos would pop into his head, when he'd wonder what Carlos could make of all that decay.  
  
He forced a smile and said, "Stop being melodramatic. I'm going to see you again soon. Two weeks, top."  
  
They all ignored the irony of James telling them to quit with the melodrama.  
  
Both boys gave him affectionate hugs and told him to drive safe, and eventually, after a few moments, Logan dragged Carlos back inside the house where they would say goodbye to Kendall.  
  
James climbed into the driver's side of his car and sighed. Kendall.  
  
He couldn't stop thinking about last night, with Jo, and the way Kendall's eyes seemed to shine at her presence. No girl had ever made _James_ feel that way. Dating involved too much drama. Girls who thought they'd be together forever when James knew all they had in common was this one short summer fling. Girls who thought they were the center of his world, texting him things like 'You're dead to me now' and expecting it to have this crater-like impact on him. And then there were those girls who really did make James's life revolve around them, bent him to their every whim, left him pining and wanting and then took off like the wind, like sand sifting through his fingers.  
  
The latest one, the supermodel, was a variation on the second and the third kind. She wanted to be this huge part of his life, to make his world narrow to only her, but at the same time she was constantly flitting off to Brazil and Tokyo and parts of the planet James had only seen in stadiums and hotel rooms and the occasional guided tour. Places that used to be nothing more than pictures in his father's ancient editions of National Geographic, a sunbeam caught falling over some distant city James swore would know his name someday. Places that once were mere points on a map, latitude and longitude lines overlapping exotic names. Some days, when all James could recall were tiny bars of soap and mini bars fully stocked with whiskey and thousands of screaming fans, he thought maybe nothing had changed.  
  
He'd been all over the world, but he hadn't, not really. Not when his memories were painted in the pearlescent blues, pinks, and whites of shampoo bottles, the turquoise of chlorinated pools, and a million different shades of Kendall, Logan, and Carlos.  
  
He'd been with too many girls, but the only person he'd ever looked at like Kendall had looked at Jo last night was…well.  
  
"Start the trip without me? You look like you're a thousand miles away," Kendall joked, sliding onto the cracked leather passenger seat of the old junker with an ungraceful thud, startling James out of his reverie.  
  
"I was just thinking about back home," James lied, not wanting to admit that he'd been mulling over a single image from the previous night, shadows, light, smoke and Jo and Kendall's faces so close together they might as well have been one person.  
  
"I thought home was here," Kendall arched an eyebrow, his expression innocuous, but innocuous on Kendall made him look like some clever mischief was afoot, like the role of mildly-inquiring-friend was just another acting job he'd undertaken and really curiosity was just driving him mad. Kendall was a terrible actor.  
  
James though maybe he took a piece of every place he'd ever lived with him, from the trailer park in Minnesota to the nonstop fun of the Palmwoods to the almost molasses-like feel of their mansion, the one place in their movingmovingmoving lives that seemed to stand stock still. But he wouldn't say so, not aloud, because philosophizing was Logan's thing and because it was a serious thought for someone who was supposed to be concerned with little more than his hair and girls and the way his voice sounded over the radio.  
  
"Home is wherever you are, dude," James said instead, and after the words tumbled out of his mouth like an avalanche he realized that maybe what he'd just said was even more serious. Kendall's gaze flickered like a candle flame, and then he turned and looked out the window as James shifted the car into gear. He tore out of the driveway, silently berating himself. Kendall watched the mansion fade away, and the silence was so thick it was paralyzing.  
  
"Is it really okay? My leaving?"  
  
"I said it was. Duh. And it's not like you're going for a whole year."  
  
"Six months is a long time," the mansion had fled behind them, but it's afterimage lingered on the back of James's eyelids, and when Kendall glanced toward him again he could feel the intensity of his best friend's gaze.  
  
"Forever is a long time," James corrected, "Six months is barely a skip in a pond."  
  
James knew all about ponds. There'd been one by the trailer park, filled with garbage and pollution and mutant three eyed fish. A stream leeched into it, and sometimes James had liked to walk the slippery stone pebble dirt path along the banks of that stream until it morphed into a river that raged, where the water turned clear and the fish had normal features and on low tide days it smelled like rotting marine life and the faintest scent of sea salt amongst the damp moss and heady pine. Sometimes James would catch the same scent at Venice Beach or Newport, except the salty air was oceanic and not from some saltwater pond that was barely larger than James's house and there was nothing organic about any of it. Wind and surf and sand with no hint of trees or snow or deep, dark shadows, all the way up the coastline until you hit Big Sur. Occasionally he'd drive all the way up there out of homesickness. That smell was his favorite. It was like home, and sometime she'd lean against the railing of Newport's pier and just inhale, when he didn't have the time to drive for five hours up north.  
  
"What if I get picked up? What if I really am scouted, and I get on a college team and the Wild decides to recruit me and I have to make a choice," Kendall blurted.  
  
"Then you make a choice," James shrugged, his fingers curling around the steering wheel a bit too tightly, the idea turning his stomach sour and his knuckles white, "We'll go on hiatus."  
  
"You hate being on hiatus. Last time we thought _the tour_ would be delayed you freaked out and told everyone your vocal chords were rusting."  
  
"They were," James replied defensively, because he'd seriously been able to feel orange-red grit growing inside his lungs, lining his esophagus. Plus he'd actively imagined all his disappointed fans. How on earth would they survive without him? For a moment, panic rose inside him. Reliving the moment made his throat close up and his vision blur. He couldn't go through that again.  
  
But Kendall's dreams were more important, he forced himself to remember. He couldn't do this halfway. He had to commit.  
  
"So?" Kendall prompted, more out of morbid curiosity than any honest intention to do so. James could tell. Kendall wasn't panicking about the future yet; he wasn't absolutely convinced he'd get scouted or play for the Wild or break up the band. He was just theorizing, weighing his options, measuring James's reactions if that ever became a real possibility.  
  
"I'll live," James answered dryly, trying to make it sound like it was No Big Deal.  
  
"What if- what if I decide I can't balance playing professional hockey and the band? What happens then?"  
  
Kendall was being the devil's advocate, and it kind of made James want to punch him in the face. What if the fucking sky turned green and the next ice age came? James had no idea what he'd do. He was a live-in-the-present kind of guy. Dreaming about the future was one thing.   
Making contingency plans was a whole other matter.  
  
"Carlos becomes an actor. Logan gets his PhD. I go solo," James flashed a quick, hopefully carefree grin, "It's not like we _need_ you."  
  
Which was ludicrous. Of course they needed him. Kendall was their glue, their fearless leader. He made them what they were.  
  
But James was damned if he would tell Kendall that, "Anyway, shut up. Stop acting like you're never coming back."  
  
"But-"  
  
"Hush your mouth. I'm talking now."  
  
"The world doesn't revolve around your ego, man. These are things I really need-"  
  
"I said hush your face."  
  
James knew his ego was inflated. He didn't need people to tell him that. Just like he didn't need people to tell him he was handsome or witty or had a rakish smile. He told himself, ever day, because more often than not, people wouldn't. Truth was, people were more likely to tell someone they looked like shit on a day they looked fine, or that they were stupid because they'd scored an eighty on a test when they could have gotten a hundred, or that their teeth were fucked up when their smile was so brilliant it was blinding. James had figured out at a young age that people were stingy with compliments and overzealous with insults, and it wreaked havoc with a person's self esteem.  
  
Unless that person, namely him, built themselves up. If he built a wall so high no casual slight could knock it down, he would be invincible. So he did, and he was. He didn't know how everyone else fended off all the minor barbs thrown at them on a daily basis, but he let them bounce off like that old nursery rhyme, I'm-rubber-and-you're-glue. Maybe everyone else was born with self-confidence, with an innate belief that they were better than everyone else's opinions, so they could just laugh every offense off. But James had created his confidence, and if that made him vain, did it really matter? It was better than being reduced to a nervous wreck every time he had a bad hair day.  
  
So really, the only times he took cruel words to heart was when they came from someone too close, someone who'd worked under the mirage of _pretty_ and _sarcastic_ and discovered the quivering, quaking being inside him that had no clue if he could handle this, any of it. Life. Living. The part of him that was terrified of everything, of being abandoned and rejected; the part of him that always seemed to _be_ abandoned and rejected.  
  
Every time someone got too close, they left, usually with some parting shots. One of his ex-girlfriends had told him he lived in a fantasy land, and the words hadn't made sense to him until after the fact, and now every time he thought of it he trembled inside, because he thought maybe it was true.  
  
So yeah. James knew he was egotistical and narcissistic. He _had_ to love himself. Nobody else would.  
  
"Consider my face hushed," Kendall grinned, not taking his snappish tone offensively because he was James's polar opposite. He was loved, and he knew it, and he'd always known it. He'd always had his parents, and when his dad died, his mom had overcompensated like hell to make sure that he still had _somebody._ Plus there was Katie, and maybe being an older brother made a person more selfless, but James had never gotten the chance to find out, because his parents could barely stand being in the same room together, much less to procreate a second time. And then there were his friends; Kendall had so many friends James wasn't sure how he kept track of them, much less why he counted James among his favorites.  
  
Basically, Kendall was the most fascinating person he'd ever met, and the one thing James feared most was that he'd figure out what a total fake James was and drop him. Kendall hated fakers.  
  
"Good. Now tell me where you want your last meal."  
  
Kendall's eyes screwed up in mock horror, and he snorted, "I knew it. You're taking me out to the desert to kill me so you'll be the pretty one."  
It was like all the tension leaked out of the car at once. Indignant, James screeched, "I _am_ the pretty one. Who thinks you're prettier than me? Wait, I am still the pretty one, right? Right, Kendall? What have you heard? Kendall!"  
  
Kendall couldn't answer. He was too busy cracking up. Fine, James sulked. He was driving his best friend to North Bumblefuck, potentially breaking up their band for all eternity, the open windows were _hell_ on his hair, and now he was being openly mocked.  
  
None of which was even the worst part. The most terrible bit was…in the face of Kendall's smile, one of that seemed to even matter.


	3. Hasn't Being Right Just Let You Down?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He felt the burn of shame color his cheeks, and suddenly this sacred place, this place that had meant to have been Kendall's final good memory of California, seemed moronic. It was just a sandbox filled with weird looking plants. Not romantic or magic at all.

Their first night on the road, James veered off course.  
  
He knew that the schedule they'd carefully mapped out involved getting on the San Bernardino Freeway until they could hop on the I-15 toward Barstow, with its street fairs and glow stick dealers and dry heat. There, they'd drive straight on into Arizona. It would only take a few hours to cross the state line. But…part of him knew that Kendall might never come back. And he didn't want his best friend's last image of California to be Hollywood, the glitz and the glamour and the illusion of shiny happy people.  
  
He wanted Kendall to know there were places that were beautiful. Breathtaking.  
  
Just like home.  
  
So that way, maybe when-or if, his mind whispered- Kendall eventually decided to leave Minnesota again, he'd know there was more to this place than pop music and palm trees, than plastic surgery and great tans.  
  
Although James was a hardcore advocate of living in luxury, he was still a Minnesota boy at heart. He liked to commune with the Great Outdoors, as long as the communing didn't last longer than a day, and wouldn't wreak havoc on his hair. Joshua Tree National Park was one of his favorite places. In the midst of the desert, it sat eight hundred thousand acres wide; people drove through the outskirts all the time without even knowing they'd entered government property.  
  
He'd been there twice before, with girlfriends who hadn't thought the one hundred and forty mile ride from LA was a Big Deal. The first had been a nature freak he'd met at one of the eco-friendly boutiques off Rodeo Drive, and she was the one who convinced him that if all he'd seen of California was the ocean, he hadn't really seen anything at all. The second was a makeup artist he'd met on a shoot, and he could still remember the way her smile had seemed brighter than the sunlight. Neither relationship had lasted long, but he could recall what it was like being there with these girls, sweet scented and sprawled beneath the stars.  
  
He wanted Kendall to have a memory like that, of him and James and the sky burning overhead. Something to cling to on cold winter nights, even if the last thing Kendall would think of on nights like those was James.  
  
"Dude, is this the right way?" the blond boy asked, poring over a map of California that was so wrinkled it was hard to determine which lines were interstates and which were the borders of the pacific, "I feel like it's-"  
  
He paused, squinting, and finally concluded, "-not."  
  
"What tipped you off?" James replied cheerily, wiggling his fingers out the window to feel the wind rush over and under them. His mom used to tell him that doing so was a quick way to become an amputee. She had all these horror stories about guys she knew. One dude broke his hand on an orange plastic cone. But his mom wasn't here, and James was a rockstar.  
  
It was kind of like being invincible.  
  
Kendall chuckled, his face lighting up with the impish smile James liked to think about sometimes, late at night, when there was nothing to distract him from all the thoughts he tried to avoid during the day. Watching the landscape turn to desert brush, the band's leader queried,   
"So, I guess we're not lost then?"  
  
"Trust me," James laughed, "I'll get you exactly where you need to be."  
  
"Somehow that's not very reassuring."  
  
This time, James didn't even bother with a retort. He cranked up the radio until it was howling with static and one of their songs, something about a girl and a party and feeling kisses all the way to your toes. Gustavo had written it, which begged the question of what girls the record producer had been kissing, but it wasn't a bad song. The beat was catchy, and the lyrics were actually poetic.  
  
Kendall refused to sing anything he thought sucked. He was pretty opinionated about what the band would and wouldn't undertake, and stubborn as a bull. It was probably why Big Time Rush had done as well as they had. Their fearless leader had done everything in his power so that his friends could have everything they'd ever dreamed of. So that James could have everything he'd ever desired. Kendall was just that _good_. Like a knight from a fairytale.  
  
When he closed his eyes, James could envision first time he'd realized that Kendall was different. A hero. Maybe not the kind from old legends, not an honest to god prince charming or a comic book character with a cape, but the kind that people talked about when they referenced fire fighters or cops or the bravest people they knew.  
  
He was twelve years old, and it had felt like everything was ending.  
  
See, James hadn't always wanted to be a popstar. When he was five, he'd played with power rangers and ninja turtles, not karaoke machines and salon sets like everyone seemed to think. His dad and Mrs. Knight had been best friends from like, the dark ages, so he'd been having play dates with her son since before he could even form words. Hockey had never really been his thing, but he'd joined because of Kendall and because of his dad, and he was _awesome_ at it. He didn't have Kendall's natural grace or leadership, but he was brutal and quick and the best fighter on the team. His life up until that point had been pretty fulfilling.  
  
Then, one night, his parents sat him down and admitted that he'd been adopted.  
  
It wasn't the most terrible thing that could have happened. For the longest time, he didn't even really understand what it meant. And his parents; they were great people. His mom was a workaholic and spent most of her time away from the house, and his dad was a grungy mechanic with a bit of a reputation as an alcoholic, but they'd never hurt him. Even at five, James knew they'd done what they could. They never denied him anything, even though he'd made some ridiculous demands as a kid. They'd raised him right.  
  
Thing was, he was curious about his real parents, about what kind of people they were. It was stupid, but when one of his neighbors praised his singing one day, when he and Kendall were splashing around in a plastic kiddie pool, belting out the theme song to Power Rangers, he had this idea.  
  
His singing got him noticed. Maybe, one day, his parents- his real parents, would hear him, and they'd know, and they'd want to meet him.  
  
It was a _stupid_ idea.  
  
When James was twelve, he found out his real parents were dead. It was a car accident on I-95. They were never going to hear his voice on the radio. They were never going to be proud of him. It was like this whole part of him had ceased to exist.  
  
He'd hidden on the roof of his family's trailer for ages, until Kendall had clambered up there with him, slinging an arm around his shoulders and asking, "Dude, what's going on with you?"  
  
The sky had been overcast, which suited James's mood just fine, and he'd been perfectly happy watching cloud formations and biting his lips raw until Kendall decided to butt in, "Nothing."  
  
"Right," Kendall rolled his eyes, " _Nothing_. Whatever you say, man."  
  
"Stop being a jerk."  
  
"Okay. When you tell me why you look like someone kicked your puppy."  
  
"I don't have a puppy."  
  
"Now who's being a jerk?"  
  
James could taste blood on his mouth from where he'd chewed through the skin and Kendall was being _such_ an asshole, like he couldn't see that everything in the whole world had quit mattering, "Shut up."  
  
"Dude-"  
  
"I said shut. Up."  
  
Kendall's eyes were dark when he leaned in and spat, "Make me."  
  
"Shut the _hell_ up," James shoved his friend's shoulder, sending him skidding inches over on the dew slick roof.  
  
Frustrated, Kendall yelled, "Not until you tell me what your problem is!"  
  
"My parents are _dead_ , okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"  
  
The blond boy reeled back, eyes wide with shock, "Wait- what?"  
  
In a hushed voice, James barreled on, "Poor James, he's a fucking orphan. He doesn't belong to anyone or anywhere."  
  
"James, your parents are downstairs. Your mom just made hot dogs- I don't-"  
  
"Not _them_."  
  
"Then who?" Kendall questioned helplessly, all traces of anger gone.  
  
"My real parents. I was adopted."  
  
"I- seriously? I didn't know that," his friend frowned, obviously trying to hide the fact that he was hurt by not-knowing.  
  
"You do now. I just found out- my real mom and dad died in a car crash seven years ago. With their real son. My brother- I had a _brother_. One they actually wanted to keep."  
  
Kendall stared at him for a good long while, his eyes fathomless, his breath turning to fog as he murmured, "James."  
  
"Don't- just, shut up, okay?"  
  
Kendall shuffled back toward him, his jeans streaking wet as he slid back across the trailer's roof to wrap his arm around his friend. For a while, they watched the sky descend upon them, until they were living in the clouds. Until they were wrapped in a mist so deep and dark it was like they were the only two people left in the whole wide world.  
  
After a while, Kendall began humming- something slow from the radio, one of those songs that had idiotic lyrics about girls but a great melody. He paused a few seconds in, saying, "You do belong somewhere. You belong here with me, dude. You always have."  
  
He continued humming, and James settled himself further into his friend's embrace, enjoying the warmth and the vibration of his ribs against James's shoulder, a stark contrast to the cold, wet rush of the clouds sweeping their town.  
  
"And you know what?" Kendall halted again, and James could feel the way the words took shape in his chest, rumbling and tenuous until they erupted from his throat, "I'm glad you were adopted. If you hadn't been, I wouldn't have met you. You would have died in that car, and then where would I be?"  
  
James sniffed. He hadn't even though of that, and it was too freaky and tragic to even consider.  
  
"Is life really that bad, this way?"  
  
"No," James admitted, even though the idea of loss still stung in a very real way. Even if he'd never met his real family, there was this void in him now, this possibility of what-if that had been snatched away.  
  
Kendall hummed again, half-formed lyrics beginning to tumble from his mouth, and James nearly allowed himself a grin, "You're messing it up."  
  
"Pssh, why don't you show me then?"  
  
"I was only singing for them," James whispered, "So that they might hear me, and- _want_ me."  
  
"Does that mean you're going to stop? You're never going to sing again?" Kendall rolled his eyes to show just how completely ridiculous he thought that idea was, "You're too awesome for that."  
  
"I- am kind of awesome, aren't I?"  
  
Kendall didn't say anything, instead returning to the song. James joined in after a beat, his voice rising into the night with his friend's until the two wound together, creating something different. A new sound. Everything he felt, captured in a single note.  
  
And maybe James would never be able to lure his biological family into meeting him, and maybe the only place he'd ever belong was in a trailer park in Minnesota, tucked beside Kendall Knight with the scent of wood smoke and pine and the sky falling down around them. He kept singing anyway.  
  
His reasons had just changed.  
  
That night had been the first of many where James had realized how much things like friendship and trust mattered. Before they'd been intangible concepts, things they taught in elementary school that had always rung hollow. Suddenly, Kendall had become the most important person in his life. He'd saved James, when he'd been prepared to give up. When he'd been prepared to give in. Kendall had shaped him, with deft fingers and a devilish grin.  
  
Things had only gotten better since then.  
  
James turned into the park, his palms beginning to sweat. Night had fallen half an hour ago, and the last traces of dusky rose were vanishing from the horizon. Kendall was watching the Joshua trees with interest; strange, brindly things, like something from a Doctor Seuss book.  
  
Once, James had read that these trees were sacred, that the park was a spiritual place. He was kind of hoping they'd bring him good luck.  
  
He pulled off the road, parking the car next to a small cluster of trees that weren't quite tall enough to block their view of the spectacular desert sky. The stars were just beginning to come out, to light up the night brighter than any neon sign Hollywood had to offer.  
  
"Why'd you bring me all the way out here?" Kendall asked as James turned off the ignition. Even though it was bad for the car, he left the battery running so that the radio thrummed old country music. They'd lost the top 40s pop stations miles ago.  
  
The brown haired boy grinned and motioned for Kendall to get out of the car. He grabbed a towel from the trunk and laid it over the hood so that the two of them could sprawl on top of the vehicle, backs reclining against the bug juiced windshield.  
  
"It's not exactly a trailer, but-" James shrugged happily, because yeah, this felt just like all those night during high school when he and Kendall would climb on his roof and imagine the way the future was spread out before them.  
  
Kendall's lips quirked and he clambered on top of the car, "This is almost kind of _sweet_."  
  
"Yeah, well. I figured you needed one last memory of Cali, for the road."  
  
"Do you take all your dates here?" Kendall's voice was jokey and carefree. He stretched his body taught across the car, shirt rising to show a strip of tan skin across his stomach as they sky exploded with light, revealing constellations, galaxies, the path of the Milky Way.  
  
"Nah, you're special."  
  
His friend fluttered his eyelashes spastically, teasing, but James could see the way he was observing the night with intent, the way his obvious homesickness began to recede when he saw Ursa Major for the first time in years.  
  
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars come alive. It was kind of horribly gay, and James wondered if Kendall knew that normal teenage boys didn't do this, didn't huddle together in the middle of the desert, in once-holy places so that they could star-gaze together.  
  
Unless they were hardcore stoners, but even then.  
  
James loved the ocean; he'd been learning to surf, and he loved the scrape of sand against his skin and the smell of salt air. But he loved the desert too; the stillness and the way heat chilled with the onset of darkness and the way no one else existed for miles. There was the smell of dust and how his sneakers stained red with the clay-rich dirt and the way the world was so still he could count Kendall's breaths, the onetwo threefour beat of his pulse.  
  
He decided it was time, to approach the thing he'd been avoiding. He'd known all along that this trip was his last chance, and here, in this place, he felt safe.  
  
Like nothing bad could happen.  
  
"So you and Jo, dude. Is that going to be a thing again?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Kendall snorted.  
  
"Just that you looked pretty close, at the party, I mean."  
  
His friend hesitated before turning on his side to face James, confessing, "Yeah, well. She's- special. I'm going to miss her."  
  
"You guys could always- I don't know, do the long distance relationship thing?" James suggested, and this hadn't exactly been how he'd planned launching into the conversation, but he rolled with it.  
  
"We're not- I don't like her like that."  
  
"Oh. Maybe you'll meet someone in Minnesota?"  
  
"I'm not really looking for a relationship right now. I want to concentrate on hockey," Kendall responded firmly, indicating the subject was   
closed.  
  
Except James had always sucked at letting things go, and he was fully prepared to go all-in, because this might be his last chance to ask, to know.  
  
Only words had never been his forte, and without even thinking about it, all the thoughts he'd been suppressing flooded his mind. He was too impulsive, acted on instinct too often. Kendall was still looking at him, eyes abyssal, unreadable. James couldn't help himself. He leaned forward, pressing his lips chastely to his friend's.  
  
For a moment, it was perfect. For a moment, there was pressure and heat and Kendall melting against him.  
  
Kendall, who then promptly shoved him away so hard that James rolled off the hood of the car, onto his butt in the sand, and demanded, "What. The. Fuck?"  
  
James hadn't really expected violence to be involved in this, but then again, he hadn't really expected anything. He hadn't known he was going to kiss Kendall until he'd done it.  
  
Rubbing his ass and trying to stand, James muttered, "Um, you are definitely overreacting."  
  
"What? You just- you fucking just- what the fuck was that?"  
  
"I know your experience is limited, but here on Earth, we call that a kiss. I'm pretty sure you've had them before. In fact, I seem to recall you and that girl from our one music video doing nothing but for _months_ last year."  
  
"James-" Kendall groaned, exasperated, "I know what- I mean, but, _why?_ Why did you do that?"  
  
James scowled. If he _had_ planned all this out, he definitely wouldn't have accounted for this. He was almost offended. Did Kendall have to act like he'd just contracted leprosy?  
  
He huffed and hoisted himself back on the hood of the car, resolutely crossing his arms and his legs, "It seemed like an opportune time?"  
  
"But- I don't like you like that," Kendall averted his eyes to the Joshua trees with their splinter bark ending in leafy puff balls, to the sky filled with a million zillion stars. His gaze traced the curves of the Milky Way, searching out planets and galaxies and alien starships that would take him far away from here, with the long, lean lines of his best friend entirely too close. He exhaled, "I don't like _guys._ "  
  
"You're lying," James retorted, blunt to cover up the way he wanted to flinch from those words. He didn't handle rejection well, but it wasn't like he could curl up in the fetal position right here in the middle of the desert and listen to his guilty pleasure rhythm and blues, all about the different ways your heart could shatter. It wasn't like he could go out and get into a fight, flex all those hockey muscles that had withered away or turned into the sleek, flexible kind more suited to a dancer.  
  
"I'm not," Kendall said apologetically, his eyes slate gray in the bright moonlight, "I kind of wish I was."  
  
Now James was just confused.  
  
"Then what was- what happened that night?"  
  
"What night?"  
  
It was like a fist to the gut, leaving him breathless, but not the good kind of breathless, the exhilarated kind, the top-of-the-world roller coaster plunge kind, or the kissing your best male friend for the first time kind. This was the kind of breathless James had only felt once or twice before, like when his fourth grade music teacher had told him he was a talentless plebe, or right before he'd left Minnesota when his adoptive parents had announced they were separating.  
  
"You don't remember," he accused, and it seemed impossible, because he was the one who'd been punch-drunk, he was the one who'd wavered on his feet and slurred his words.  
  
"James," Kendall said clearly, the name melting on his tongue in this slow, agonizing way. James had always loved how Kendall said his name, " _What_ night?"  
  
"Our third gig, the one in that seedy little bar Kelly booked because she had a connection with his owner," his voice sounded tinny and distant, not like James at all.  
  
"She dated him in undergrad," Kendall recalled, "She giggled like a hyena every time he came near her, and then at the end of the night she ended up getting in a cat fight with his new girlfriend."  
  
Oh, so he had no trouble remembering what _Kelly_ had done, Kelly with her shiny, glossy hair and her shirts with plunging necklines and large amounts of cleavage.  
  
James had shirts with plunging necklines. He had his lucky v-neck. Although really, it probably wasn't the same thing.  
  
"Yeah. It was after our show. I was drunk-" he realized he couldn't find the words he needed. Because he'd spent so long _not thinking_ about it. He'd spent so long pretending it hadn't happened but secretly hoping it would happen again. And now Kendall had- what, forgotten?  
  
"You know what? It really doesn't matter," he finally concluded, embarrassed at having placed so much emphasis on something that obviously didn't mean a thing, at least not to Kendall.  
  
"It does," Kendall insisted, his eyes wide, his pupils reflecting the stars.  
  
"No," James growled, "It really, _really_ doesn't."  
  
"James-"  
  
"I said fucking drop it, okay?"  
  
He felt the burn of shame color his cheeks, and suddenly this sacred place, this place that had meant to have been Kendall's final good memory of California, seemed moronic. It was just a sandbox filled with weird looking plants. Not romantic or magic at all.  
  
"Okay," Kendall shoved his hands in his pockets, rolling off the hood of the car. James could see the outline of his back still on the windshield, like a chalk outline on a sidewalk. His precious automobile was abruptly a crime scene, even if he wasn't sure what exactly had gone down. He'd been robbed of a memory, he'd been stabbed in the heart. He'd been betrayed. There were too many things to list, too much hurt and pain to catalogue.  
  
James stuttered out lamely, "Let's just- go. We need to get to Arizona if we're going to stay on schedule, and the hotel I booked is still a few hours away, and- it's late. We'll probably have trouble checking in."  
  
"Alright," his friend agreed, the stars making his dirty blond hair shine like a halo. There was a crease in his forehead that meant he was concerned, but James didn't want his worry, his pity.  
  
Right now, he didn't want anything at all.


	4. Nothing I Say Could Make You Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James gasped on reflex, surprise and heat flooding his body as Kendall's callused hands pushed his shoulders back into the mattress. His best friend was devouring him, and there was no tenderness in the gesture, not a hint of gentle respect Kendall might've shown a girl. Their teeth cracked together, so hard James worried he might have to invest in veneers, and he could feel the burn of Kendall's fingertips as they traveled down his body, coming to rest on his hips all the way down to his bones.

Over the past few years, James had grown accustomed to nice hotel rooms. Gustavo Rocque only shelled out for the best, and the band never even thought to complain about living in the lap of luxury.  
  
Maybe they should have, because Kendall's immediate reaction to the dingy motel James booked wasn't exactly reminiscent of their hockey playing years. Back then, they'd stayed in a gazillion rooms just like this, but apparently, fame made them outgrow roaches and water stains.  
  
"I mean," the blond said lamely, gesturing at the yellowed wallpaper, "It sure is- uh, cozy."  
  
He'd been talking like that for the past two hours, stilted, as they rolled through the darkness of the desert, past the hazy silhouettes of cacti and the negative space between.  
  
"Right," James nodded, thinking that the rooms had looked bigger, _cleaner_ on the website. At least they had cable. They'd passed a rundown joint or two that advertised _color_ TV as a big draw.  
  
"Look, man-"  
  
"Do you want to shower first, or are you going to wait 'til morning?" the taller boy interjected, not wanting to hear it, any of it. It had been stupid, confronting Kendall in that place, the stupid National Park that had always represented romance in James's eyes and was now and forever more the spot where he'd been shot down so hard he should have a concussion from the impact.  
  
It wasn't even Kendall's fault. If he didn't feel anything, if he didn't remember anything- well. Kendall was a good guy. A great guy. And James intended to view Kendall in that light, not negatively.  
  
Not like he'd somehow participated in a betrayal.  
  
All he wanted now was to wash the night off of him, the dust of the desert and the grime swept in by the car's open windows and the scent of Kendall underneath it all. He needed to rinse it all away, and when he did that- yeah, he'd be fine.  
  
"I-" Kendall's eyes squeezed shut, and James wanted to trace his eyelids, ease the furrow in his brow, kiss the little crinkle in his nose, but he stayed stock still on the bedspread, pretending to be a statue to keep himself from moving, "I guess I'll go first."  
  
James cast his friend a strained grin and flopped back on the comforter, not caring that a CSI team could probably find hundreds, thousands of semen and blood samples scattered across its surface. He kept his lips twisted into something that was supposed to resemble a happy expression until Kendall finished digging through his suitcase for a pair of clean boxers and finally, thankfully walked into the bathroom and shut the door. The fake smile fell away into a grimace, and his first fucking relevant thought for a long while was that Kendall hadn't grabbed James's carry case full of hair products.  
  
He restrained himself from battering down the door to deliver shampoo and conditioner. The motel probably provided tiny bottles, and besides, the last thing he needed right now was to see Kendall naked.  
  
Not that he hadn't before. They'd been friends forever and a day, it felt like.  
  
James met Kendall on a Sunday when he was ten. His clearest memory of that day was not the blue of Kendall's eyes, the color of the stream near his trailer, dappled by sunlight, or of his smile, so impish he looked like a sprite.  
  
No, the color James remembered was of the black-purple-blue of the bruise staining Kendall's cheekbone in the shape of James's knuckles. The smile he recalled was marred by three chipped teeth and bloodstained gums. And he remembered himself, standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, touching the tender spots that marked the punches Kendall landed on him, the map of Kendall's fists on his body.  
  
It was the first time anyone had evenly matched him, at anything.  
  
Kendall had been there for a whole hell of a lot of firsts, after that. After they'd overcome their differences and realized the hockey team had room for more than one star, and that they could finish each other's sentences like their brains ran in sync, and that together it felt like they could rule their tiny backwater town.  
  
Kendall had been the first person to believe James could make it in show business.  
  
They'd snuck out to the bleachers at their new high school, barely fourteen with a six pack of James's adoptive father's Natty Ice. It was well past one in the morning, and winter was in full swing. The snow crunched under their boots as they cleared a spot on the highest bench, and they sat side by side, tucked into each other's parkas, theorizing about the future.  
  
"Center forward," Kendall announced confidently, swigging back the beer and then coughing and sputtering a bit, "Wow, that's- your dad likes this?"  
  
"Yeah," James shrugged, feeling the icy chill of the can through the palms of his gloves, "Kind of tastes like-"  
  
"Piss," the blond made a face, "Bubbly, frozen piss."  
  
James laughed, "You better get used to it if you want to get invited to any of Jenny Tinkler's parties."  
  
Kendall winced and resumed drinking.  
  
"Center forward?" James prompted.  
  
"Oh! Right. Fuck yeah, I'm gonna be right out there in the middle of the ice, just me and the puck and a million gazillion fans."  
  
"You're not gonna have a team back you up?"  
  
"Eh, maybe- but everyone will know who the MVP is," the smaller boy threw him a cocky grin and began flicking the tab of his can back and forth until it snapped off.  
  
"Oh yeah?" James could see it though, laid out in his head, this perfect image of Kendall in his hockey gear, playing for the Wild and a countless number of screaming faces, "Well, I'm going to be famous. Just you wait."  
  
"I don't doubt it, man," Kendall's smile was easy, and the beer fizzed in James's throat, golden and warm.  
  
"You're just saying that 'cause you're my friend, and you have to."  
  
"No way!" Kendall laughed, setting his beer aside and grabbing James's wrist. James had cut the fingertips of his gloves off because he'd seen it in a magazine and they didn't sell things that could be labeled fashionable in the local sporting goods store, but he was beginning to regret it, because between the icy can of Natty Ice and the snowflakes beginning to descend around them, his hands were going numb. Right up until Kendall slid one of them up under his parka, under his shirt beneath it, so that James's fingers traced the lines of his chest.  
  
"Dude," Kendall continued, "I'm completely serious. Feel my heartbeat. This is not the heartbeat of a liar!"  
  
"…Are you drunk?" James demanded, trying to wrench his hand away, but Kendall held tight.  
  
"No! I saw this on a spy show- they hook polygraphs up to your chest because your heart speeds up if you're lying. Is my heart speeding up?"  
  
It wasn't. Kendall's heart was thudding like a kick drum, the strong, steady pulse of it beneath James's fingers as he dragged them along his friend's chest a perfect constant.  
  
"See?" Kendall asked, earnestly, "You're going to make it. I know you are. You're gonna have stadiums full of people under your _thrall_."  
  
"I have a thrall?" James teased, and just like that, Kendall let go. He retracted his hand, and they continued drinking into the night, but James would always remember- the feel of his friend's heart, the honesty in Kendall's eyes, and the feeling of being loyally supported.  
  
Yeah, Kendall had taken part in a lot of James's firsts, but it was obvious there was one first he wanted nothing to do with- and it involved being James's first boyfriend.  
  
By the time Kendall turned off the shower spigot, James had seriously considered pretending to be asleep at least three times. But he didn't like thinking that maybe he was a coward, because sometimes he got really scared that he could be. It would be really easy to curl into a ball and block out the rest of the world.  
  
It'd always been _sickeningly_ easy.  
  
From landing a recording deal to their first concert, James faltered every step of the way, at least for a moment. He had recurring nightmares of failure and humiliation. Always, always, he refused to allow himself to cave, not because of Kendall or Logan or Carlos, but for himself. For his dreams.  
  
The others didn't have that fear. They followed Kendall, and Kendall was full of unending courage and responsibility. In light of that, James tried to do his own thing, he really did. Following Kendall's every whim with blind faith was _Logan's_ gig, and he was fantastic at it; he was pretty much Kendall's minion in all things because he believed in their leader. He had faith, and why wouldn't he? Kendall had never lead them wrong, whether it was a hockey game or a party or real life. He always had a strategy, and Logan liked strategies. He'd question them occasionally, he'd voice his doubts, but he'd never once say no.  
  
Carlos followed Kendall too, not because he had this unshakable belief that everything the blond boy did was right and just and would get them out of trouble, but because it inevitably involved reckless behavior and getting _into_ trouble too, which was Carlos's element. That's where he lived.  
  
Which left James the non-minion-like behavior. He believed in Kendall, in everything he did, but he didn't want to be the same as Logan, and he wasn't particularly fond of trouble- it usually was hell on his hair and his complexion, although he definitely wouldn't ever back down from a fight if it came to that.  
  
James _couldn't_ be a minion or he'd blend in, and there wasn't really an option for a follower who had no doubts to voice, no desire to throw themselves headlong into some wacky plan, and a drawing need to be seen not just as an individual, but as someone separate and better than Carlos and Logan. And it was a problem, because sometimes James wanted to just blindly put his faith in someone other than himself. Especially times like these, when it would be so, so impossibly uncomplicated to lie back and pretend to be asleep. To let Kendall deal with the fallout of the past couple hours all by himself, because that was what Kendall was brilliant at.  
  
His whole life, really, all James wanted was someone to take him in and try to fix him, or at least realize there was something that needed fixing in the first place, behind the smiles and the eyes and the masterful ability to lie about his whole reality. He wanted Kendall to fix him now, to fix this. He wanted to unshoulder the burden of being _strong_ and aloof and untouchable, for his best friend in the whole wide world to smooth over this terrible, sinking feeling of misery that James had brought upon himself.  
  
He knew exactly how it would go, if James let it. Kendall would spend the night mulling it over, and then, in the morning he'd sit James down, tell him that they needed to talk this through, to discover what signs Kendall had given James that made him think molesting him in a state park would be okay. Their friendship would change, guided by Kendall's hand, evolve into something less tactile, more acceptable. It would be Kendall's way of making things right, if only James turned off the light and closed his eyes.  
  
His hands balled into fists, and to distract himself he fumbled for the TV remote. He couldn't let this change anything. He just _couldn't_.  
He kept the TV blaring and the lights blazing and his eyes open, unblinking. He would make everything go back to the way it had always been. He wouldn't abide cowardice, no matter how tempting it was.  
  
When the door swung open, Kendall stood in the frame, dried himself off, rivulets of water making the planes and lines of his body sheen. He was looking at James just how James knew he would, like he was ready to level out the wrinkles James had created in their relationship.  
  
Then he hesitated, "Are you- watching BBC America?  
  
Right. He could do this. James pasted on a smile, "H'yeah."  
  
"But- I thought you hated British people. I thought you didn't like anyone with a sexier voice than you?"  
  
"I don't. But I'm watching Doctor Who. It's about this time traveler who's all noble and tragic."  
  
Like you, James wanted to add. The show made him weirdly, totally horny, and not just because everyone on it was ridiculously pretty. But he didn't mention that.  
  
"I-uh, okay," Kendall inclined his head to the side, "We should really talk."  
  
And there it was.  
  
"Actually, I don't think we need to."  
  
"James-"  
  
"Obviously, I was totally off the mark, and in hindsight, yeah, I get that I made a _huge_ mistake," he was grinning, but his teeth were grit so hard James could feel the grind of them all the way up through his skull, "But you know, you're supposed to _learn_ from mistakes, and I learned that _everything_ should stay perfectly, totally like it has been."  
  
"But, dude, if I did-"  
  
"You didn't _do_ anything," James practically growled, "Can we just drop this? It's over, done. It won't happen again."  
  
"James," Kendall sighed, and he looked oddly vulnerable standing there, water dripping from his bangs into his eyes, his body lean and naked, goosebumps lining his arms as he let himself be blasted by the motel's air conditioner. For a split second, he just looked- broken.  
  
Then he straightened and he was Kendall again. He shrugged and said, "If that's what you want. Shower's all yours."  
  
James jumped to his feet and practically ran into the bathroom. He wasn't a coward, no, but sometimes strategic retreat took precedence over valor.  
  
\---  
  
It was well past midnight when James crawled out of the shower. The TV was still going, even though Kendall was definitely asleep, and the room was dark. James made his way to his bed by touch, body damp, and when he reached for the remote on the nightstand, his hands streaked moisture over wood, plastic. The television clicked off with a resolute buzz, and that was all there was. He was in the middle of a dingy motel in Arizona, cloaked in darkness and accompanied by his best friend's soft breaths, and nothing else.It was all so fucking surreal. James crawled beneath the sheets, squeezing his eyes shut and hoping for the first time that this trip would pass quickly. Maybe the distance, having Kendall in Minnesota would make things simpler. Maybe.  
  
Probably not.  
  
The blankets on Kendall's side rustled.  
  
Something hit the floor, muted, like footfall on carpet, and James's eyes flicked open. There was darkness, and then it resolved into a shape, as familiar as the back of his own hand. He could see Kendall hovering by the side of his bed, fish-belly pale in the moonlight, outlined in silver. His eyes were luminous, mini universes unto themselves.  
  
"Kend-"  
  
Kendall was at his side, fingers brushing over his mouth and James's chest felt wide open, like his insides might spill out. The maid would find him in the morning, laid bare, intestines and kidneys, liver and everything vital, all exposed, for the world to see. He wondered if Kendall could feel the sudden onslaught of James's heart, racing so quickly, fluttering like a bird about to take flight.  
  
He wasn't sure, he didn't know, and Kendall wasn't about to tell him.  
  
Kendall was too busy _kissing_ him.  
  
James gasped on reflex, surprise and heat flooding his body as Kendall's callused hands pushed his shoulders back into the mattress. His best friend was devouring him, and there was no tenderness in the gesture, not a hint of gentle respect Kendall might've shown a girl. Their teeth cracked together, so hard James worried he might have to invest in veneers, and he could feel the burn of Kendall's fingertips as they traveled down his body, coming to rest on his hips all the way down to his bones.  
  
It was too fast. It was too unexpected. It was too deliciously, sinfully good.  
  
He kissed along James's chest, coded messages that James couldn't, wouldn't comprehend, and now Kendall was on the bed, straddling James, holding him prisoner between his thighs. He nipped his name along the rungs of James's ribs, each vicious bite followed by a brush of his tongue, abrasive and filling him with need.  
  
James tried to card his fingers through Kendall's hair, to arc up into his friend's body, but it was like the blond was dead weight, pinning him from wrist to ankle. In the darkness, James could see the whites of Kendall's eyes, like an animal as his mouth moved along James's belly, lower and lower still. He licked along the waistline of James's boxers, tonguing at the trail of hair that lead down to better places. This wasn't- James knew this wasn't how hookups were supposed to go. There was usually more kissing before anyone got so close to his dick, but he didn't know how to complain when Kendall's lips mouthed nonsense words over the cloth of his boxers, the wet heat penetrating through the cloth, making James so hard he couldn't stand it.  
  
His hips jutted up, pressing the length of his erection along Kendall's face, trying to escape the firmness of Kendall's hands on his thighs. His nerves were frayed, excitement bubbling through his veins as Kendall mouth ran along the length of him, and he wanted too many things all at once. To kiss, to hold, to have Kendall's lips around his cock right damn now. He couldn't choose, he could only grunt, "Please," and thrust up once more.  
  
It must have worked, because Kendall's hand snaked into his boxers, freeing James so that he could swallow him whole.


	5. And The Clean Coming Will Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, the boyfriend thing was- whatever, and the gay thing? James didn't have a goddamned clue. He'd always been the first to admit when another guy was attractive, in aesthetic, viewing-them-as-competition kind of way. But more than that? He was still figuring it out.

James woke up to the scent of coffee, biscuits and honey, and a stream of whitewashed sunlight pouring across the room. It looked even seedier in the light of day, the paint of the ceiling peeling overhead and the carpet threadbare and worn. Kendall was sitting at the little pitted wood table by the window with a tray full of their free continental breakfast.  
  
It looked like he'd already eaten most of it.  
  
He was facing the wall, eyes distant, all the way back in California for all James knew. Though the thin material of Kendall's old, faded t-shirt, he could see the proud lines of the blond's back, the tense set of his shoulders, the way he held himself with a sort of confidence that most people interpreted as arrogant self importance.  
  
Hell, maybe some of it was. Kendall had a certain air of entitlement that came from growing up a Knight. The whole clan was driven, ambitious, and could get anything their hearts desired; Katie, Kendall's mom- geez, even Kendall's grandparents were kind of frightening that way.  
  
"Hey, man," James groaned, sitting up in a nest of rumpled sheets that looked like they'd seen a night of wild, crazy animal sex. Which felt close to the truth, even if the previous evening had only culminated in a blowjob.  
 _  
Only_ a blowjob. James shook his head, still cobwebby with dreams, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he'd gotten that much, so much more than he'd expected. It felt like an impossibility, even now that it had happened, even now that James had Kendall imprinted on the back of his eyelids. Every time they flickered closed he could see his friend, lips wrapped around his cock, imagine the warm, wet heat of his mouth. And fuck, he'd only been awake for two minutes and relived it eighty times.  
  
Kendall turned to face him, the movement fluid, "Morning, sleepyhead."  
  
James suppressed the urge to run his fingers through his hair, to make sure he looked good for this gorgeous, amazing guy. Like Kendall hadn't already seen him at his worst, over and over again.  
  
"I, uh- that smells good," James croaked, not sure how to act, what to do when he could still feel the brush of Kendall's fingertips against his hips, the phantom touch haunting him.  
  
"It's all for you," Kendall waved a hand over the plate magnanimously, like what remained wasn't a congealed, sad looking egg and a crumbly muffin, but an honest to god feast.  
  
"Great."  
  
James clambered out of his linen labyrinth, getting his legs tangled and nearly falling flat on his face. The only thing that saved him was Kendall's quick reflexes; strong hands on his stomach, perched on the small of his back, "Steady there, buddy."  
  
He sounded like he always had, the same Kendall James had known for the better half of the last decade. But that didn't stop James's body from reacting, a rose colored flush heating his skin. He wondered if Kendall could feel it, if his sudden shyness was burning his best friend's palms, but before he could ask, Kendall snatched his hands away.  
  
"I called home, checked in with Logan, Carlos. Mom. I, uh-" Kendall bit his lip, the flash of teeth on pink flesh hypnotizing, "After you eat, we should get a move on."  
  
"Sure," James shrugged. Something felt off, but he was still half-caught in a dream world. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and settled into his meal, which vanished in something like three bites. God, he was fucking starving.  
  
Kendall watched him with quiet intensity, as if he was studying a wild animal in its natural habitat. James knew a normal person would hate it, would be uncomfortable with such scrutiny, but he was born to live in the spotlight. He liked attention; it didn't matter if it came from thousands of screaming girls or a boy he'd known forever and a day. Although, yeah, maybe he could silently admit that he preferred the latter.  
  
It was _Kendall_ after all.  
  
Once he'd finished up, he went to brush his teeth, all the while watching Kendall don his jeans over his boxers out of the corner of his eye. He wondered in this fleeting, freakish way if those were the same boxers Kendall had slept in, still stained with slight traces of James's cum from when he'd wiped his hand off, at the very end. _That_ train of thought called up memories of the popping sound Kendall's mouth had made when he'd finished, letting James's dick fall limp while he swallowed- and well, yeah. That didn't help anything. James accidentally jabbed himself in the side of his mouth with his toothbrush. Fuck.  
  
He went through his usual routine, ending in a five minute stare off with the mirror that his friends all said was just proof that James couldn't pass a shiny surface without trying to seduce it, but which today proved a helpful aid in examining a certain Knight boy without his knowledge, gathering his nerve and trying to act put together.  
  
Finally, James let go of the sink, where he'd gripped so hard his knuckles had turned white. He slipped on a pair of jeans, a black t-shirt and some motorcycle boots that made him feel sexier than James Dean and zipped up his suitcases, car keys jingling in his back pocket.  
  
"You ready?" he asked, and he still felt bashful, a little awkward.  
  
"Let's go," Kendall nodded his head, leading the way out of the room and onto the filthy, sun bleached sidewalk, all the way to the hole in the wall lobby for checkout. After handing back their keycard and a brief exchange with the weathered old dude who manned the desk, they fled outside, for the car, for the sunlight.  
  
James's boots kicked up dirt, and he felt like a renegade. All alone with a guy who meant everything to him, on a dusty desert highway that stretched on forever.  
  
He popped the trunk, although popped might be a misnomer, as he had to manually stick the key in and wrench it open. James liked the nostalgic way it felt, handling the old car, when all the other rides he owned had push keys and start buttons and looked like they might have arrived from outer space.  
  
Kendall threw in his suitcase, letting it land unceremoniously on the duffel bag where James kept his jack, a flashlight, and a first aid kit, pushing it all around so James had enough room to fit his in snugly.  
  
"Why do you have a stack of Vonnegut books back here?" Kendall asked, grabbing for one of the dog-eared novels at random, thumbing through the battered edition of Slaughterhouse Five. James wasn't fooled into thinking his friend was actually reading the book; they were assigned it once, back in Minnesota, and the most use Kendall ever got out of it was as a coaster.  
  
"Logan borrowed the car for that beach picnic with those bikini models a few weeks ago. He didn't want to risk getting his all sandy."  
  
"Only Logan would think books and bikini models were an acceptable combination," Kendall replied fondly, and James felt something hot as lust, but more piercing slice through his chest. He recognized it as jealousy, but smushed it down, away.  
  
The way he always did.  
  
It wasn't a new feeling, really. When he first met Carlos and Logan, James was jealous. Ridiculously so. He'd never had friends with such normal, happy home lives. And he'd never, never had to share Kendall before.  
  
Mostly, he'd managed to overcome it; too confident in himself to let petty envy mess things up for him, and always willing to be the bigger man. Plus, he'd thrown a _diva fit_ about a month into their friendship back in the day, and Kendall had put him in his place but good.  
  
Still, there was no denying that Kendall had a soft spot for Logan. He told him secrets he wouldn't even tell James. He mollycoddled the guy half the time, because he was small and naive and worshipped the ground Kendall walked on whenever he didn't have his face buried in a book. It got _annoying_.  
  
So yeah, James got jealous time and time again, whenever Kendall mentioned Logan's name with that affectionate tone. One might even say James had a _complex_. Overcoming it was a work in progress.  
  
But all that was over. He'd won the second Kendall's lips touched his cock…hadn't he?  
  
Kendall was driving, keys in the ignition and warning James to buckle up, but he couldn't stop thinking about what last night had meant, if anything. The landscape slowly rolled past as they hopped on US-89 towards Utah, but James wasn't processing the red rock cliffs or the prickly lone cacti. He was searching for words, for something to say, and failing, hard. Eventually Kendall switched on the radio, where some old cowboy sang about love and heartbreak.  
  
Around eleven they stopped at a gas station for a fill up and snacks. The girl behind the counter with shining eyes asks for an autograph and a picture. Both boys agreed, even knowing that the picture would make all the gossip sites by noon. Everyone was going to be wondering what was up with half of BTR's impromptu road trip.  
  
The breakup rumors would start.  
  
It'd be even worse once Kendall was in Minnesota. Then the rumors will be _proven_ true. But what else could they do? They couldn't deny a fan.  
  
When they crossed the border between Arizona and Utah, James was surprised by how much the landscape stayed the same. He tried to talk, to say something that would get the ball rolling, but the only things he could think to say were idle comments about the weather. At first he toyed with the radio dial in an attempt to gather his courage, switching between static and Christian rock, stations in español and twangy country hits. There was a blip where he caught the tail end of one of their songs, but Kendall smacked his hand away from the console and changed it, quick. He looked guilty, even with his eyes trained on the road.  
  
Any courage James had managed to round up evaporated. He was terrified that if he brought up the previous night, Kendall would admit that it had been a mistake, an experiment, or even a dream. He didn't want to press, to force Kendall into speaking before he was ready. Even if Kendall _was_ usually the person who tackled things head on. James found other ways to occupy himself, anything but talking. He dug a notepad from the dash and scribbled half formed lyrics, thoughts that might not ever see the light of day. Gustavo opened up to their ideas the more time passed, but he had yet to let the band pen their own song. He must've drifted off at some point, because the next time his eyes flickered open, they were rolling into Salt Lake City and it was late in the afternoon. His legs felt cramped, his back knotted. Outside, the cityscape stood in stark contrast to the sky, dusk falling quick and stealthy, creeping in until everything was white lights and stars.  
  
Their hotel that night was fancy; it lived up to every one of James's expectations with modern art paintings and comforters so fluffy he could drown in them. Only, the distance between his bed and Kendall's seemed a whole hell of a lot farther, and the flat screen TV gave the an excuse not to talk until dinner.  
  
They went to a place near the Mormon Tabernacle, deciding that they wouldn't be sticking around in the morning to sightsee. The window by their table looked out onto the building, gray spires that glowed soft ochre under manmade lighting. It would've been almost romantic, if their dispositions hadn't been so damn gloomy.  
  
James wanted to go out, to explore what kind of night life Utah had to offer, but he didn't want to go alone, and Kendall wasn't in the mood for well, anything. As the hour grew later, no matter how hard James tried to engage him in any kind of conversation; it all just fell flat, stilted. They were both tired and irritable from the long ride, and eventually, he just gave up. Besides, Utah's night life couldn't be all that great; all their liquor stores were run by the state, and they'd only passed one during the entire drive. It was a far cry from Hollywood.  
  
By the time James had dived under his covers back at the hotel for sleep, it was barely even ten. It was the earliest night he'd had since he was sixteen, when his parents split. Back then, mom couldn't take the heat and skipped town, eventually surfacing a few months later working the afternoon shift at a local dive. Meanwhile his dad scored a real cushy job, allowing them to move out of the trailer park where he'd lived most of his life, into a real-live house. He had a new step mom within months, who imposed upon him, of all things, a curfew.   
  
Lights out by ten, every night.  
  
James had taken to sneaking out to Kendall's house by the second week. They'd stay up well past two in the morning, playing video games and talking about how much they were going to regret fucking around when they had to get up for school at seven.  
  
But he kept doing it, night after night, because with Kendall, it had always been worth it.  
  
Then Gustavo had come along, and the whole thing became a moot point.  
  
James tossed and turned restlessly for hours. The high thread count sheets felt itchy against his skin, and he was hot, overheating despite the air conditioner on full blast.  
  
Eventually he managed to admit to himself that he was waiting to see if Kendall would pad up to his bed again, breath caught in his throat.  
  
He didn't.  
  
\---  
  
The next day was more awkward than the previous had been. There was definitely _something_ wrong. James had been willing to let the drive through Arizona pass in a lazy haze, but he didn't have endless stores of patience like Logan. At the risk of sounding like a chick, he needed some goddamned closure.It came to a head outside a rest stop on the way to Idaho.  
  
It wasn't completely Kendall's fault. James had accidentally dumped half of his sub for lunch all over his favorite shirt, leaving a huge, oily stain, and his hair was getting harder and harder to maintain the farther away they got from California's dry heat, and his knee ached from jutting up against the steering wheel too many times. The Saab had this electrical short thing with the seats, and Kendall had played with his adjustments the day before, only to have it all spark out. James couldn't move forward or backwards, and he was lucky the trip wasn't with someone as tiny as Carlos, or he never would've been able to drive.  
  
Anyway, point was, he was more than a little ill-tempered when they pulled over at some shady ass building that looked like it probably housed half of America's serial killers so that Kendall could pee.  
  
"I've got to piss like a racehorse, dude," had been his exact words. So James had stopped, and now he was waiting outside, where the scenery had changed from cacti to sparse brush, but otherwise looked mostly the exact same as it had since they'd left Joshua Tree. Red and brown and sandy yellow; like the beaded dreamcatcher James's mother once hung in the corner of her room.  
  
Kendall emerged from the restroom looking a lot less tense, but still avoiding James's gaze.  
  
He maybe, sort of snapped.  
  
"Alright, what is your fucking problem?" James demanded, his voice loud, reverberating across the open land until the hot sun and the dirt and the boot-brushing scrub ate it up. And, okay, maybe that hadn't been the best way to phrase all his pent up aggression, because the expression on Kendall's face turned murderous.  
  
"My problem?" Kendall turned on him, abrupt and volatile, like he'd been waiting for this moment for eons, "You're the one that's been acting like- like- way clingy and obsessive."  
  
"Excuse me?" James demanded, voice pitching high. Clingy and obsessive was what you called _girls_ when you wanted to _break up with them_.  
  
"But I guess that's just par for the course with you. One minute you're acting completely normal and the next minute you're- I don't even fucking know, _mauling_ me in a National Park."  
  
"Mauling you? _Seriously_? It was just a fucking kiss! If that's what you call mauling, what the hell do you call your mouth on my-"  
  
"You liked it," Kendall spat, interrupting his tirade.  
  
"Of course I liked it, it was a blowjob!" James exploded, "What's not to like?"  
  
"Maybe how wrong it was?" and now Kendall's voice was deadly quiet, a serpent waiting to strike.  
  
James faltered. He'd known something was off-maybe he'd even suspected that Kendall regretted what had happened, but he'd been wishing so hard that it was something, anything else. Because that meant the other night would never happen again.  
  
He'd gotten his hopes up for nothing, and now he was just pissed. He sounded lethal when he hissed, "No one forced you to."  
  
"Yeah, actually, you did. With your fucking face and your fucking eyes and you made me feel like I'd kicked a fucking puppy-" Kendall was shouting, voice reverberating all over the empty valley, bouncing off the walls of the filthy restroom and the dusty mound of packed earth that made up the parking lot.  
  
"Stop yelling at me!" James screeched, feeling like everything was spiraling out of control.  
  
"I have to yell, because _you're_ the one who didn't want to _talk!_ "  
  
Kendall emphasized his point with a fist to James's jaw.  
  
They hadn't fought with fists and limbs and fury since they were thirteen and falling head over heels for the same girl. That had ended in bruised ribs and unshed tears. This was different, more visceral. James stumbled back, body slamming against the wall of the restroom. He grimaced, popped his jaw back into place, feeling the bones grind, the soreness where the joints connected. It was going to be ugly by nightfall, black and blue tinged yellow, like the time he'd fallen off his skateboard one summer when he was seven and eaten way too much asphalt.  
  
Kendall was glaring at him, fist still out, knuckles protruding as his chest heaved for breath, and James couldn't take it. He hurtled through the air, catching the blond by his ribcage and throwing him down against the sand. His friend's head hit the desert with a dull thud, but it couldn't have hurt much because he was already scrabbling to turn the tables, to land James on his back. His elbow caught James in the chest, pain blossoming across his sternum and the taller boy retaliated instantly, pounding his fist hard into Kendall's face. His missed smashing his nose by a fraction of an inch; in the back of his mind he had half formed thoughts about Big Time Rush and photo shoots.   
They evaporated when Kendall hooked a leg over the back of James's knee, using the larger boy's weight against him so that they toppled to the side, grappling for power.  
  
James threw himself forward, vicious, landing a knee in Kendall's gut, bashing his best friend's head into the ground. If they'd been in a real parking lot, somewhere inside civilization, his skull would have cracked on the concrete, but this place was just loosely packed dirt, and Kendall was resilient. He pummeled James's chest, his face, tangling their legs so that there was no way the taller boy would be able to utilize them, their hips crashing together. James felt wild, untamed, and perversely more than a little turned on.  
  
He caught one of Kendall's wrists, allowing the blond's other hand a glancing blow to his shoulder and twisted, firmly, but not enough to break anything. Kendall winced, squirmed, and that was when James realized that he wasn't the only one getting a little hard. Kendall immediately stiffened, catching the look in James's eye. His face shuttered close, and he pulled his forearm against James's thumb, freeing up his hand so that he could shove James's body off. Kendall scrambled to his feet, limping a little, staring at James like he was some kind of feral stranger.  
  
"Are you gay now?" he wheezed, clutching hard at his chest as he leaned against the car, "Do you want me to be your- what, boyfriend?"  
  
James lay back in the swirling dust, panting, trying to breathe past the sharp pain in his abdomen.  
  
The most fucked up thing about all of this was that when he'd kissed Kendall in the desert, he hadn't been after a relationship. He'd spent so long decidedly _not_ thinking about Kendall that way that when the call had come in, when he'd opened himself up to the possibility of them as more than friends, he really hadn't even considered anything past trying to get their mouths to match up. Trying to recapture a night that had been burned on his lips, the back of his eyelids since the moment it happened.  
  
After Kendall had pushed him away, yeah, he'd thought the boyfriend option had flown out the window, but it hadn't been foremost on his mind. He hadn't been sad about it, or even felt any which way about it because it was just a fucking label, and James wasn't even sure if he _was_ gay. All he wanted, all that occupied his mind was _Kendall_ , and how he didn't want to ruin their friendship, what they'd had up until now.   
Too late for _that_.  
  
So, the boyfriend thing was- whatever, and the gay thing? James didn't have a goddamned clue. He'd always been the first to admit when another guy was attractive, in aesthetic, viewing-them-as-competition kind of way. But more than that? He was still figuring it out.  
  
"I dunno," he said, his voice hard to catch, a tumbleweed in the wind. He scrambled up, found his footing, and offered a hand to Kendall.  
  
"No, don't- fucking touch me, okay?"  
  
This wasn't fair. All he'd wanted was to make sense of a memory, and now everything was fucked.  
  
"Kendall-"  
  
"I remember, okay? Kissing you. I _remember_ ," Kendall muttered, voice practically breaking.  
  
"But- if that's true, then why-"  
  
"I was trying to forget! I was trying so, so hard to forget. _James_ , I mean-"  
  
"Kendall, I-"  
  
"What do you think this trip was about?" he yelled, frustrated, whipping his hands through his sandy blond hair.  
  
"You. The things you want. And-"  
  
"Don't you dare say it," Kendall was angrier than James had seen him in a long time, the kind of cold anger he usually locked up because it affected his ability to lead.  
  
"Okay," James lifted his shoulders helplessly, "I won't."  
  
"Because that's not what you told me this was," Kendall continued, "You never said this was about me and _you_."  
  
He hadn't, hadn't even thought it, but now he knew. It was.  
  
"I-"  
  
"You weren't supposed to spring this on me when I was trying- _God_ , I can't do this. Let's just get this whole thing done with," Kendall stooped to pick up the keys that had fallen by the wayside during their fight and tossed them to James, commanding, "Drive fast. Because right now, I can't even stand the sight of you."


	6. Remind Me Of Who I Used To Be Back When

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kendall's mouth opened and closed, like he had a million words that he desperately wanted to say, but couldn't, wouldn't. In that moment, he looked nothing like the boy from James's memories who was brave and strong and true, who had tumbled through the woods outside their school with him, trapping and releasing small animals just for the thrill of it; who'd invented shopping cart hole-in-one to make time pass faster. The boy standing in front of James now looked vulnerable, scared, broken. He was a complete stranger.

The initial plan that afternoon had been to check in at a posh hotel in Idaho Falls just before three, but James was running on rage. He drove down I-15, split off into US-20 as fast as he could go, turning winding roads and huge, empty plains into shapeless blurs. They sped through the rest of Idaho, past the snowcapped Grand Tetons in a neighboring state, up into Montana. They edged through a corner of Wyoming where Yellowstone began, right back up into Big Sky Country, the world turning into thick foliage and wandering Buffalo, majestic rivers and valleys and things they sang about in The Star Spangled Banner.  
  
Originally they'd only decided on stopping so that they wouldn't over-exert themselves, so they could actually see America in something more than the fast paced trek between concerts. Now, checking out the middle-of-nowhere was the last thing on James's mind. He wanted to forget; all of this.  
  
Except it was impossible when every time he glanced toward the passenger seat he could see the shadowy bruising along Kendall's cheekbone, the raw-red of his split lip. Whenever his eyes flicked up toward the rearview mirror there was his own face; black and blue along the jaw, the eye, bloody scratches from where Kendall's nails had raked his neck throbbing in time to his pulse.  
  
So James decided not to look anywhere but forwards, where there was nothing but road, the earth and the sky meeting in a faraway horizon. Kendall's elbow bumped his arm every time he reached over to flick through the stations, searching for a voice to save them from the overbearing silence. At least, at first.  
  
They'd lost the radio long before entering National Park territory, and _now_ all he had for company was Kendall's harsh breathing and the constant self-derision in his mind.  
 _  
Of course_ Kendall didn't want him. He was straight as a ruler. Pretty girls threw themselves at him after every concert, every hockey game, every place they went as far back as James could remember. James may have had a reputation back in high school as some kind of player, but Kendall was always the one with the charismatic pull. Kissing James that night before their tour must have been _horrifying_ for him, a train wreck that he'd tried to erase from his memory, and James- such an idiot- had dug it all back up, like raw sewage floating to the surface.  
  
Why couldn't he leave well enough alone? James wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left for emphasis, his knee slamming into the door. If he'd just kept his mouth shut and his lips to himself, none of this would have happened. Kendall would be willing to actually _look_ at him instead of pretending the car was being driven by a nameless chauffeur, or fuck, the Invisible Man.  
  
James was thoroughly distraught, convinced he'd never hear his best friend's voice again except through songs on the radio. Once they arrived in Minnesota, he probably wouldn't even get a goodbye.  
  
"James-"  
  
Seriously, how had he let everything turn into such a monumental disaster?  
  
"Dude, slow down-"  
  
He bit his tongue so hard it bled, a sharp metallic taste, bitter down his throat.  
  
" _James_!"  
  
Up ahead was a sharp turn to the right, and James could see debris littering the road. He'd noticed all the falling rock warning signs as far back as Arizona, but the idea of a landslide was so far out of James's head right now.  
  
Right up until he hit the curve going over ninety, nearly barreling over a cliff save for James's quick reflexes and the old car's _excellent_ traction. None of which even mattered, because as he swerved to avoid the empty space where any sane state would have placed a guardrail, James lost control of the wheel. Up ahead was a boulder so large it could've flattened a Mac Truck, and as James stomped on the brakes again and again, they only missed a head on collision with it by inches.  
  
"Pull over. James! Pull the fuck over!" Kendall was yelling, his grip white knuckled and vice-like on James's arm. At some point, the typical hero, he'd thrown his hand out in front of James's chest, like that would stop him flying through the window if they actually had made impact.   
Some things never, ever changed.  
  
As soon as he regained control of the wheel, James coasted them at a snail's pace to the next lookout point; a dry patch of dirt for Kodak moments, and the reason the mountain had no preventative measures at all to protect crazy drivers from plunging down into oblivion. He pushed the gear shift into park, slumping against the window. _Shit._  
  
Outside of his window, the scenery was gorgeous, surreal. An imperfect background for James's what-the-fuck-just-happened-moment.  
  
"Are you suicidal?" Kendall screamed, his gray-green eyes wide and angry and frightened, "Do you _want_ to die?"  
  
"No," James spat, vehement, but his voice came out a scared whisper. Because it kind of did look like he really had planned on ending them both in a fiery crash, but that hadn't been it at all. He'd just been so angry, and the speed helped him think and-  
  
"God, you're _stupid_ ," Kendall's callused hands shook as he unbuckled his seat belt, twisting his body so that his back edged up against the glove compartment. He slammed a palm against the driver's side door as he used the other to grab for James's chin. The gesture lacked gentleness, or any sort of care for the bruise that had blossomed into an ugly black and blue fresco across the taller boy's jaw, "So. Damn. Stupid."  
  
James steadfastly refused to look into Kendall's eyes, even though he was forcing their faces close together, trying to make their eyes meet.   
He was stupid, and stubborn, and this was all _Kendall's_ fault- but James's fingers were trembling on the wheel. All his adrenaline, all his fury had drained away, leaving nothing but fear and desperation, and somewhere, laced tightly between, something sickly and tenuous he was starting to think of as love.  
  
If love was something that made you want to outrun the whole world, that is.  
  
"Why would you do that? Why would you even- are you insane?"  
  
"Probably," James admitted, tacking on a gruff, "Sorry. I didn't mean- I- that was really close."  
  
" _Yeah_ ," Kendall agreed emphatically.  
  
"I am- sorry. I," James tried and failed to regulate his breathing. He'd never been so terrified in his whole life, "I was pissed- at you. And me. And I just- it won't happen again."  
  
"You're sure as hell right it won't," Kendall nodded, "I'm driving."  
  
James watched his friend snatch the keys from the ignition and said faintly, "That's probably best."  
  
"I don't get what you were thinking," and wow, Kendall was in full rant mode, "'Cause fyi, death is not a healthy way to express your anger."  
  
"I know that," James was starting to get annoyed, because scary or not, it's not like he'd done it _on purpose_. That whole die young, stay pretty thing wasn't his thing. He planned on _still being pretty_ at eighty.  
  
And rich and famous. He was neither rich enough nor famous enough to die quite yet.  
  
Kendall was still leaning back against the glove compartment, staring at him seriously, "It's not the way to get through to me, either."  
  
"That's not what I wanted to- dude-" James shook his head, trying to find words but still refusing to meet his friend's gaze.  
  
"Yeah?" the blond challenged, "What did you _want_? Do you even know?"  
  
James stared at him, not sure what to say. Quiet, venomous, Kendall hissed, "Is this what you fucking want?"  
  
Kendall kissed him hard, his lips searing, their teeth clicking together. It wasn't anything like what James wanted, but he took it all the same.   
His eyes were clenched so tight he could see the afterimage of the landscape, only it had become a skeleton world; a wildfire racing across its desolate beauty with the same heat and ferocity as Kendall's mouth on his, the same power to destroy everything in seconds.  
  
James felt like even the sky and the earth couldn't bind him now, like logic, like _gravity_ had disappeared. The only thing that kept him from floating off into outer space was his best friend's lips, the way his tongue ravaged James's mouth.  
  
And then Kendall worked his hand beneath James's jeans and the world slammed back into place.  
  
"Stop," James panted, trying to grab Kendall's wrist, but he was stronger, quicker, and way more determined. His fingers deftly wrapped around James's cock, rough, abrasive, _searing._ He couldn't have stopped himself from arching into it, even if he'd wanted to. But he was suddenly sure that this wasn't right. He'd never meant to _scare_ Kendall into touching him, and as much as he longed to let his best friend jerk him off right then and there, it felt so much less than consensual, on both their parts.  
  
"Get. The Fuck. Off," James shoved Kendall back, his dick wrenched from his friend's loosened grip. It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience, but James absolutely refused to wince. In the flattest voice he could manage, he pushed open the car door and said, "You want to drive? So drive."  
  
He could feel Kendall's hot gaze follow, but he refused to break. If there was one thing James Diamond would never let himself be, it was _pitied_.

  
\---  
 

They stayed in a motel on a long, empty stretch of highway, a familiar motif of blue, beige, and white. Mountains loomed in the horizon, yellow painted lines stretching off to their base. When they pulled into the parking lot, James spotted a rainbow lurching out of the clouds. It made him feel lonely, seeing all the wild beauty he'd always attributed to old country westerns.  
  
He wondered what it would be like to live out here, if it would make him feel like an outlaw or just the last survivor of the human race. They were so far away from Grauman's and neon lights and handprints set in cement. This world felt strangely visceral, savage, and so completely unlike pictures on a silver screen. James realized he _wasn't_ the kind of guy who could cope with zero human interaction.  
  
All the wide open space would probably drive him insane.  
  
"I feel like a cowboy. Days on the road, nights in front of a campfire," he told Kendall tentatively, the first words either of them had managed to get out in hours.  
  
A faint smile darted across Kendall's face, and he said haltingly, "Um, we haven't had any campfires. I could buy you a lighter and some marshmallows to toast."  
  
James made a face, "Dude."  
  
Neither of them had actually apologized, but it felt kind of like a start.  
  
Later, once they'd checked in, they kicked around the hotel room as the day stretched longer, the promise of dusk twinkling in the air.   
Kendall had gone to take a shower, but even though the water was running, James could hear Kendall whispering, a hushed conversation not meant for his ears. As the minutes ticked by, sunset blazed across the hotel room- the ashtray and the pictures of rural America, the reimagining of The Battle of Wyoming painted in saffron, orange, and blood red.  
  
When Kendall emerged, the sun had already dipped low behind the snow capped mountains in a wash of gently fading gold. Night was falling like an oncoming storm, swift and starless. It reshaped the landscape violently, pocked with shadows and danger.  
  
"Who was on the phone?"  
  
Kendall looked guilty, "What?"  
  
"I heard you whispering," James rolled his eyes, because stealth wasn't exactly one of Kendall's talents, and he damn well knew it. Still, he was trying _not_ to sound like an overly suspicious girlfriend, the kind sane guys couldn't stand.  
  
"Oh. Uh, Logan."  
  
"Of course," James deadpanned before he could stop himself. So maybe he was failing the not-sounding-jealous test. And the being-a-good-straight-friend test. And the not-killing-them test. Weird, he'd always gotten decent grades before.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
James figured if he was in for a penny, he might as well go in for a pound. It wasn't like he was exactly super-high in Kendall's esteem at the moment, "It means it's always Logan. Right?"  
  
He didn't bother waiting for an answer, instead grabbing his jacket and the car keys and making a beeline for the door, "I'm getting dinner."  
  
When his hand touched the door knob, Kendall spoke, stopping him in his tracks, " _Wait_. I- do I really make you feel so insignificant?"  
  
James cocked his head to the side, staring at the wood grain of the door and replying carefully, "I don't know. Maybe. Would you rather I was Logan?"  
  
Shadows devoured Kendall's face, turning him into this grotesque parody of a marble statue, a real boy made fake against the sunny wallpaper, "Sometimes I- look, sometimes I stay away from you. I stick with Logan, because being near you, James, it's hard. Sometimes."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"You're my best friend. My oldest friend. This thing we have-" he waved a hand vaguely in the air, "-isn't natural."  
  
"Says who? Kendall, being with you- it's the only thing I've ever known."  
  
And it was true. There might have been something before that fateful day when he was ten years old and they first met, but when James searched, all his memories, a parade of good days and bad days, all were filled with a boy with blond hair and a huge, dimpled smile, his gray-green eyes shining and fearless.  
  
Kendall's mouth opened and closed, like he had a million words that he desperately wanted to say, but couldn't, wouldn't. In that moment, he looked _nothing_ like the boy from James's memories who was brave and strong and true, who had tumbled through the woods outside their school with him, trapping and releasing small animals just for the thrill of it; who'd invented shopping cart hole-in-one to make time pass faster. The boy standing in front of James now looked vulnerable, scared, broken. He was a complete stranger.  
  
Or maybe this was how he'd always been. God knew the mask James always wore never cracked, never showed all the things he felt inside; the worry that his mom and dad would never be able to stop hating each other long enough to notice how much he'd achieved, this deep seated yearning for attention, approval- no, vindication from the whole god damned world, and an abiding love for someone who thought he was- what, unnatural, now? A freak?  
  
His shoulders slumped. It was obvious he wasn't going to get a response. Kendall hadn't moved, was staring at him like James had a Medusa-gaze that could turn him to stone. And James was just so, so tired. He did the one thing he was best at; pasted on a smile and acted like he didn't have a care in the world.  
  
James wasn't sure if everyone was like this, but he thought they must be; full of insides that didn't match their outsides. Smiling when happy was the last thing they felt.  
  
"I'm getting dinner," he reiterated, and this time when he twisted the door knob, he met no resistance.


	7. Movement Gives You Some Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The air smelled earthy, like pine and dirt and wetness, the crisp scent of freshly fallen snow making his breaths sharp and deep and clear. He'd forgotten under the illusion of being a Hollywood star, a faux California boy that he wasn't born and bred for glamour. At heart, he was a backwoods country bumpkin, white trailer trash, and it was a secret he fought to conceal. But Kendall seemed to revel in it. He seemed happier and more upbeat than he'd been this whole trip, and his smile made James's breath catch in his throat.

"Get up. C'mon, get up. Rise and shine," a voice singsonged in James's ear, and he was _so not_ a morning person. He rolled onto his side, pulling the pillow over his head as he went, but it did nothing to deter Kendall. He laughed, yanking the pillow away so that the world outside James's closed eyelids became miserably bright.  
  
"Why don't you want me to sleep?" James groaned, making a blind grab for the pillow, but wherever Kendall was, it wasn't in arm's reach. He sighed and cracked an eye open, surveying the room. There was Kendall, at the foot of his bed, looking entirely too self-satisfied.  
  
"Because I enjoy your company," he chirped, and tossed the pillow back on the bed. James frowned, because this was certainly not the guy he'd left standing in their motel room the previous night, forlorn and confused. When James had returned from his drive, ten miles out to a near-empty biker bar with greasy chicken wings and a friendly waitress keep the beer flowing with no sign of an ID, Kendall had already passed out. James's mind had been buzzing around, like it was filled with champagne bubbles, but the taste of barbecue sauce and stale lager had tasted sour in his throat. He'd pulled on a pair of threadbare sweats and fallen asleep wondering if anything would ever be okay again.  
  
"Are you sure?" James couldn't stop himself from asking, his voice self-deprecating and scratchy from sleep.  
  
Kendall's smile faltered, but it made a reappearance almost instantly, and he said, "Come on. We're going to go tour Yellowstone."  
  
"I thought you wanted to get to Minnesota, like, immediately."  
  
His friend tilted his head to the side, and now he wasn't quite meeting James's gaze, "I changed my mind."  
  
James wanted to ask what brought about the sudden switch, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Kendall was obviously trying to be nice, but even so, it was an olive branch, a broken arrow, a white flag of surrender that came a little too late.  
  
James felt his exhaustion like a physical ache, like a heavy cloak he couldn't take off. But obediently, he stumbled out of bed and got dressed, and let himself be guided into the car in a listless haze, ignoring Kendall's attempts at chit chat. Logan and Carlos called this his diva-tude, but James figured he had every right to be tired and pissed. He'd tried and tried and tried all across the better part of the Northwest, and now he was done being magnanimous.  
  
Never mind that everything was his fault to begin with.  
  
James had never been to Yellowstone, but given his last experience with a national park, he wasn't exactly thinking kindly thoughts in its general direction.  
  
Life could be so lame. He'd had all these expectations, and some of them had been fulfilled (being an international superstar, Check), come truetruetrue, but when he thought a certain moment, second, daymonthyear would be good, better than good, he was inevitably let down. James certainly wasn't holding out much hope for the rest of this week, much less their impromptu tour of America's finest natural bounty.  
  
He'd gotten used to the wide open space, the red cliff-faces and burnt tan mesas leading out to the western seaboard. But the further north they drove, the more he began to see vegetation; big, old trees and shrubs and a whole hell of a lot of ice. At first it was gradual; distant glimpses in the mountains, like the view from the motel. Then he spotted patches of slush that faded into huge frozen plains, a whole wasteland in waiting. The patches became more frequent, solidifying into powder puff piles as the snow thickened, drifting out into the road in whirling tornados, like dust storms turned to sparkling diamonds.  
  
Snow made James think of Christmas, even though it had already come and gone. They'd spent the holiday in Los Angeles, filming a special for some charity or another; one of Carlos's bleeding heart causes. He was always trying to help people.  
  
It was one of his best qualities.  
  
They'd flown their families out to stay at the mansion, because they had enough room for a small third world country, and they'd never really been forgiven for missing the first Christmas they'd spent in Los Angeles. Anyway, this last holiday had gone off without a hitch. James remembered stringing lights on the tree with Kendall, the glow of his face changing from green to blue to red to golden. The way they'd snuck into the kitchen past midnight and spiked their eggnog and watched _How The Grinch Stole Christmas_ , and Kendall was humming the Whoville song for the next week and a half. It drove Gustavo insane.  
  
And now, like he could read James's expression as easily as any book, Kendall light up like a Christmas tree, "It's been forever since I've seen this much snow."  
  
"Yeah. Thrilling," James drawled, feeling his stomach clench, because even though he was so mad at Kendall he kind of wanted to punch him in the face with a brick, the winter wonderland meant they were one step closer to home, to the day when he'd just- poof!- disappear from James's life.  
  
Kendall smiled in reply, not bothered at all by his friend's oh-so-obvious sarcasm, and he might as well have been the Mona Lisa for all   
James knew what it meant.  
  
And despite his anger, James wanted to know what Kendall was thinking, desperately. It would have been so much easier if he could have seen inside of the blond's head, could have guessed the how and the why of the actions that had lead them to this moment, this fleeting smile here on a long stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, but nothing was ever that simple. Everyone had a story, and mostly they never got told unless the person it belonged to decided to speak. Kendall was keeping quiet, his poker face perfection.  
  
They drove on and on and on, the overwhelming silence gaping between them, filled only by the rumble of the old Saab's engine. Eventually they slid on through a row of white, empty booths. There weren't any park rangers taking money for admittance, giving out maps or words of advice on not feeding the animals. It was the off off off season, and as Kendall pointed out, there were at least eight other entrances to the park, totally unguarded. He'd only chosen this route to see the big wooden sign that read Yellowstone National Park.  
  
They'd only been driving in the park for ten minutes or so when they discovered their first herd of big, shaggy buffalo with wide, kind brown eyes. They stood in the middle of the road like barricades, regarding the car with a hint of wary animal instinct and the weariness that came from hundreds of years of becoming accustomed to the fact that this land was no longer their own. They littered every visible surface, grazing the tips of grass stalks that had managed to break through the snow.  
  
Kendall honked and revved the engine, but it took half an hour for them to get around that first herd. He drove for a while longer, past signs that pointed out touristy locations, the roads icy and empty, before pulling over onto a relatively dry patch of dirt beneath a thick canopy of trees.  
  
"Get out," Kendall ordered.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"We can't see _anything_ locked up in the car," he replied, "Time to hike."  
  
"I'm not sure I'm up to hiking," James said, glancing down at his jeans, which he'd paid Way Too Much for.  
  
"What happened to you? You used to be fun," Kendall raked a hand through his blond hair casually, his eyes filled with mock accusation and more than a little daring.  
  
"I'm still fun," James replied indignantly, unable to stop himself from rising to the bait.  
  
"Oh, really?" Kendall goaded, "Then you won't mind hiking."  
  
"Hiking's not fun, it's work," James grumbled.  
  
"That's not what you used to say."  
  
"I never said hiking was fun," James replied, not tricked.  
  
Kendall groaned, "Oh, but you think running is? You run. I've seen it."  
  
True enough. Back home James went running every evening he could, trying to sweat out whatever was on his mind.  
  
"Yeah, that's maintenance. Nature doesn't just bless you with muscles like these, man."  
  
Kendall shook his head wonderingly, "Is everything you do to keep up appearances?"  
  
"No. I spend time with this one douchebag who drags me out of bed at ungodly hours and likes to ruin my beauty sleep."  
  
Kendall grinned.  
  
"Jerkface," James muttered, climbing out of the car. Hiking, ugh.  
  
They spent hours exploring Yellowstone. By late afternoon, they were trudging along beneath a blood red sky, touring hot springs in dreamcatcher colors; brilliant turquoise and burnished saffron and the gold-orange of dawn. Pine tree green, a strange neon chartreuse, a murky ochre, and a deep blue that reminded James of the Pacific, with its shaggy surfer boys and bronzed beach bunny girls and anonymous starlets dipping their toes in the water, hoping to catch a tan. Steam rose from the pools' depths, solid white mushroom clouds in the freezing cold air. The wooden planks of the platform beneath his dusty, scuffed, once fashionable boots creaked and splintered, keeping them from falling into a tan, sludgy mud that someone in Hollywood would probably bottle and make use of in a high priced spa.   
Some parts had been flooded over with cooled, clear water, and under the force of weak little currents the mud had been shaped and molded, designs like the pattern of marble etched onto the surface.  
  
They found the uninspiring dirt mound that housed Old Faithful, surrounded by a fence to keep tourists from getting too close. There were benches surrounding most of it, like an amphitheater, but James was convinced they were the only people in the whole park. He imagined in the summer there would be hundreds, milling around the geyser like colorful birds, waiting for nature to perform for them, to prove its power. Big buildings loomed in the distance; a gift shop and a café, both closed. When the geyser did go off, a towering, phallic pillar half obscured by its own spray and steam, James found himself wishing that all the manmade structures would up and vanish. It was hard to appreciate natural majesty when there was so much that wasn't natural.  
  
The air smelled earthy, like pine and dirt and wetness, the crisp scent of freshly fallen snow making his breaths sharp and deep and clear. He'd forgotten under the illusion of being a Hollywood star, a faux California boy that he wasn't born and bred for glamour. At heart, he was a backwoods country bumpkin, white trailer trash, and it was a secret he fought to conceal. But Kendall seemed to revel in it. He seemed happier and more upbeat than he'd been this whole trip, and his smile made James's breath catch in his throat.  
  
They were making their way out to a waterfall in the early dusk when Kendall said, "James- "  
  
He had that tone, that let's-have-a-conversation-with-our-serio

us-faces-on tone that made James's stomach clench.

"Let's not."

"What?"

"Let's not talk about whatever it is you want to talk about."

"Whatever it is I want to…" Kendall repeated, trailing off. James nodded.

"You mean," Kendall said vaguely, waggling his fingers enigmatically in the air, meaning _everything_.

"Yeah. This is the first time in days we've been cool. Let's just stay that way. Drama free."

Kendall's mouth gaped open, and then he closed it. He blinked, swallowed, and said, "Alright. If that's what you want."

"Definitely," James said without conviction. But he meant it, he really did. They'd been fighting for the better part of the week, and James was used to this part of their relationship, the give-take bickering that once was commonplace before California, before he was just _so grateful_ to Kendall for making his dreams come true. But he was used to good parts, too, the parts where they would be companionable and the best of friends, and it was kind of nice hiking around a deserted National Park to finally be getting back to that.

He knew where they both stood at this point, honestly. Kendall didn't want him. He wanted Kendall, and he was so, so mad that Kendall was a dense idiot who acted like being wanted signified the end of the world. There was nothing left to talk about there.

So they wouldn't.

They found a waterfall connected to this sparkling, babbling river. Not very fast, but definitely deep in parts. There was a buffalo (because they were _everywhere_ ), trotting through the water, already up to his chest in it.

"Dude, that looks fucking freezing. Stupid Buffalo's going to get hypothermia," Kendall muttered.

"I don't think Buffalo get that."

"Learn that one from Logan, did you?" A wicked smile graced Kendall's lips, and he said, "I dare you to jump in."

"What? No. You're certifiable."

"Not up for a polar bear dive?"

James shivered, "It's like a million below zero out here. My ears will fall off. I like my ears."

"I like your ears too," Kendall replied, solemn, for just a beat. It stilled James's heart, but then he grinned again, "C'mon. I bet I can stay under for longer than you."

Privately, James thought that it was true, because Kendall was a stubborn bastard and would probably let himself drown before losing a bet. But he had a rep to protect, and James never turned down a dare. All his bluster was just posturing, biding for time, because the creek looked crackly cold and uninviting.

"You're on," he said, his voice going all deep and masculine.

Which didn't reflect how he felt at all. His balls were probably going to shrink to the size of peanuts. Ugh.

So like idiots, they stripped down to nothing and cannonballed into the river. James didn't even have time to think that Kendall, the object of all his pent up lust and love was literally _naked_ next to him. He didn't have time to remember any kisses or that one stolen, blissful blowjob, even though as the water enveloped their heads their bodies slid against each other eel slick, the water freezing but viscous. James was too busy clawing for the surface, pulling Kendall's elbow, dragging him up with him. Even the thrill of heat Kendall could send through him every time their skin brushed together wasn't enough as the air compressed from his lungs, turning them to metal, to steel.

When they broke the surface, James gasped for air, and it still felt like he couldn't breathe. Both of them paddled for the banks. James hoisted himself into the snow, panting.

"Right, and I'm the crazy one," he huffed. At least he hadn't _meant_ to nearly kill them.

He pulled himself out of the snow and turned, searching for his clothes, his jeans and thin leather jacket hanging like mournful flags over a splintered wooden fence. Except then he realized that Kendall wasn't next to him, and he turned and saw his friend floating on his back in the river, dunking his head under once for good measure, just to win the bet. Then he stood, grinning, a boy carved of ice. James thought that if he slapped Kendall in some buffalo skins and streaked him with the blood of their slaughter, he really would look like he belonged to this land, to the mesas and plains and the thickly wooded forests.

Night had fallen, somewhere along the way, and watching Kendall there, sparkling with starlight, teeth chattering, James realized that he loved him more than he'd ever be able to say. And it was wonderful, and it was terrible, and he knew it would leave scars on his heart for the rest of his life.

And he couldn't even bring himself to fully _resent_ Kendall for it. Not everyone had a foil, that one person who confronted them and made them love, made them hurt, made them feel every inch of the spectrum of emotion they _could_ and then left, walked away, so that their victim had no choice but to accept the agony or learn to stand tall. Most times James knew it was a curse, a laceration across a heart that never really healed, but sometimes, sometimes it was a blessing.

Sometimes it made a person grateful they got to feel that much at all.

So, no, not everyone had a foil, but he'd always had Kendall, and maybe, if things ever became okay between them again, he always would.  
James needed things to be okay, to be just like this moment, because he wasn't sure if he could manage living and walking and breathing without him. He was eighteen, and he still had all these raging overactive teenage hormones that weren't quite ready to settle down, so there was a chance that he was being overdramatic, but he didn't think so.

Because if he was totally honest with himself, he'd felt the same way for his entire life.

When they were twelve and got in a fight over who could take the class turtle home for two whole days, he'd felt like he was gasping for breath.

When they were sixteen, and the possibility of BTR being disbanded forever loomed over their heads, and Kendall wasn't doing _anything_ to save James's dream. Kendall who'd been his biggest supporter for James's entire life, who was the only reason his dream had come true in the first place, had given up. James had resolved that he was an inconsiderate dick and hadn't spoken to him for close to two weeks, signing a contract with that asshole Hawk and talking about destroying him. It had made James feel raw and scratchy and kind of like he'd been punched in the gut until he'd seen Kendall in the studio, singing his idiotic silly song, the one he'd made up to piss off Gustavo, the same way he'd been making things up since they'd first met, just to make James smile.

And the fight they'd gotten into a little over a year ago, when they'd both been after the same girl, except James had kind of known he hadn't liked her at all; he just hadn't wanted Kendall to have her. Or more correctly, her to have Kendall. And they'd gone three months without talking outside of the studio, the longest fight they'd ever had. And James had felt physically sick, and thought maybe that was what love was, something that hurt so bad it made you vomit and feel psychologically unsound.

He needed things to be okay so he wouldn't have to walk around feeling like all the oxygen had been sucked off the Earth. But even now, sifting through the crumbly bits of his heart, James couldn't shake how grateful he was that he'd met Kendall, that he'd kissed him, even if it might've still brought about the end of the best thing he'd ever known.

Kendall finally emerged from the river, the water endless, glittering behind him. He was all James could see.

He splayed across the snowy, his body moondrenched and silver, his hair getting too long, curling around his ears. The snow was thick and heavy, January at its best, and James had forgotten how _cold_ the cold got.

"Dude, we need to get in the car, _now_."

Even through his violent shivering, Kendall laughed, and with no shame at all pulled on his clothes. They dashed for the car and turned up the heater full blast, waiting until circulation returned to all their fingers and toes before setting out again.

They drove down to Jackson Hole that night, to a restaurant built out of polished, knotted wood. James was fascinated with the shapes of the rings in the design, the way the shades of brown faded from deep, dark, rich brown to a mottled rust to a light beige. There were big burgundy cushions so soft his butt must have sunk at least two inches deep into them and a huge plate of red meat close to bleeding. The ceramic was so hot James burned the skin of his forearm, leaving a long, thin, red mark, like he'd sliced a razor down his vein and it had left a scar. They bought burning hot drinks made of apple cider and bourbon with orange peels floating inside. The goblets were nearly the size of their heads. The whole place had this caveman-chic gentleman's club feel to it, not least because of Bambi watching them from a plaque on the wall and the chandelier made of antlers.

And then, right before they paid the bill, James began to sneeze.

Kendall's eyes snapped to his, sharp, and he reached across the table, his fingers warm against James's cheek, or maybe cold; he couldn't tell. It should've been a clue.

"You're burning up."

James shook his head, because he didn't get sick very often, and he'd never believed that old wives' tale about the cold giving you…well, colds, but by the time they got back to their motel- the same one from the previous night- he felt like he was dying.

Kendall forced him into bed, even though James didn't feel sleepy. He must've been, though, because the next thing he knew, he was down for the count. He had fever dreams of palm trees and flashing lights, handprints in cement and throwback Hollywood glamour. There was Kendall, in an old school zoot suit, a fedora tilted to shadow his eyes, but even so James could tell he was staringstaringstaring. In the dream, he reached out, brushed his fingers across James's forehead. Kendall pressed the back of his hand against James's fevered flesh the way nobody had since James's mother, long before the separation.

"Be okay," Kendall murmured, and it sounded like a command.

The landscape shifted, changed. James was standing on a sandstone and red clay cliff, lips parched as he stared out into a wide open blue sky. There were hawks, or eagles, or- James didn't know very much about birds, but these were graceful, huge, soaring. Down below was a valley, filled with buffalo blood, and Kendall stood there, wrapped in a cape made of thick, dark fur. He pushed James over the edge.

James woke up. The digital clock on the nightstand read that it was well past three in the morning. He got up and made his way to the bathroom. When he looked in the mirror, his face was pale white except for two burning spots of pink high on his cheekbones, the long spread of his lashes dark.

He looked like a little boy.

He felt like one too. For the first time since the trip had started, James just wanted it to be over.  


 


	8. The Weakness In Giving In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well…" Kendall said, looking up at the house, "We're here."

James woke up feeling burnt out, half dead. He had partially formed memories of Kendall standing guard over him all night long, but he couldn't tell if there was any truth to them at all, or if it had been part of the twisted landscape of his dreams.  
  
He glanced around. Even if they hadn't been the only two people in the room, James would have recognized Kendall by scent; by the way he exhaled when he smiled. He'd mapped every nuance of his best friend's behavior since the day they met, until his presence became unmistakable, whether he was a silhouette across a concert hall or just soft breath on the back of his neck and a warm body pressed against his skin. Right now Kendall was curled up in an incredibly uncomfortable looking chair near the foot of his bed, passed the fuck out.   
He looked about five, smooth-faced and serene.  
  
James sighed. They had a day or two left before everything ended. Before they reached Minnesota, and Kendall ran off to live his dream. The idea of Kendall not being a part of his life anymore felt like the end of the world.  
  
He wondered why the end of the world felt like such a relief.  
  
They'd had a good day yesterday, except for the- sneezing and coughing and burning high temperatures. A really, goddamned good day. It had been _fun_. More than fun.  
  
Which was one more nail on the coffin lid. Whatever Kendall felt about him, they could still have days like that, and they could still be the best of friends. _Everything_ and _nothing_ could change. Fine and good and great. But James wasn't totally ready for a new kind of normalcy. He'd spent most of the trip steeling himself for a clean break or a new start; not for friendship purgatory. That was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid by Not Talking to Kendall, but it seemed like it wasn't so simple anymore. Whether they talked or didn't, fuck, it didn't change the fact that he'd had Kendall's mouth on his dick, that he'd practically swallowed Kendall's tongue on more than one occasion. They obviously weren't going to get together. They obviously weren't going to call it quits. And their old relationship was broken. Really, they only had one option left.  
  
A regular friendship. Which he'd wanted all along, really, but James had been so scared that everything would change, had been so desperate to keep it all normal, that he hadn't even considered the consequences of normalcy.  
  
It felt like now they could become the kind of friends who had something amazing and lost it. The kind that were close and just- drifted apart.  
  
Because that was what this was all leading up to. James could tell. He saw it in the stars, in every curve in the road. Kendall would stay in Minnesota and be _fantastic_ , because he always was. He didn't know how to be anything else. He'd play for the Wild and get ridiculously famous, and one day he'd wake up and realize that he hadn't heard from James or Logan or Carlos in years.  
 _  
That_ was what being _normal_ meant; moving on.  
  
James pressed a hand to his forehead, but he couldn't tell if the cool smoothness of his skin was typical or significant. It could have meant he was turning into a fish or something, for all he knew. He was really kind of terrible at taking care of himself.  
  
He pulled on a pair of dirty jeans and wandered outside, without even bothering to button them. He just needed to _breathe_.  
  
The mountains stood silent and still in the distance. Their snowy caps glowed a bruised purple-blue in the early twilight hours. His eyes traced the intermittent faded yellow stripes painted on the asphalt, the deserted road panning out in either direction in front of the motel.   
Desolate.  
  
It was a really fucking great metaphor.  
  
His life was a series of crisscrossing highways, it felt like. The one his parents, his real parents, had died on. The roads to the airports, the wind tunnels and turbulence from Los Angeles to Tokyo, London to Sydney to fucking Reykjavik. This one, with Kendall, stretching longer and longer before him. And each of them growing steadily emptier. He was driving towards the horizon, but he felt like he'd never reach it.   
One by one, the people he'd traveled with had disappeared, until he was all alone. Just him and a static radio.  
  
And the world was _too big_ to handle alone.  
  
His phone buzzed in his pocket, the soft vibration against his leg jarring him from that massively depressing thought.  
  
It was Carlos. Carlos and a dirty joke that James probably could have lived his entire life without reading, but Carlos all the same. He thumbed back in his inbox and saw he hadn't actually checked his phone in days. He had a whole stack of messages, all from the two people he and Kendall had left behind.  
  
Maybe he _wasn't_ so alone then.  
  
James had been lucky 'til now; really, really lucky. Not everyone got to live out their real life with their best friends in tow. Not everyone got to see the same faces at twelve and ninety two, to map their contours and how they changed. But he did. He would. His best friends had stuck by him through everything, even when he'd thought he was strong enough to do it all alone, back before he'd known how big the world really was. They'd _always_ be there; and it was even more amazing now that he realized how much he needed them. _Logan_ and _Carlos_ would be waiting at home, smiling, arms open wide.  
  
James didn't know if he could handle that. All the love and affection in the world, when he felt like he didn't deserve it. But he'd get it anyway, because he was too much of a coward to turn them away, and without Kendall, god, they were all he'd have left.  
  
He tapped out a quick reply, snapping his phone shut and shoving it deep into his pocket. He almost managed a smile. Because just having Carlos and Logan left? Yeah, that wasn't so terrible.  
  
James peered up at the gunmetal gray sky and shivered. Enough moping. When it was cold, it was hard to feel anything other than really fucking cold. He needed a sweatshirt or an igloo or something. Mostly, he just needed to get back inside.  
  
Kendall woke up a few hours later, and immediately set about trying to take James's temperature in the most preposterous ways possible, hands wandering beneath his clothes. James drew the line when his fingers drifted over the curve of his ass, squeaking, "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"  
  
The blond tapped his fingers against the waistband of James's jeans, "Don't they have rectal thermome-"  
  
"Stop!" James held up his hands, defensively, "I'm fine."  
  
"You can't know that."  
  
"I can," he insisted, grabbing the back of the smaller boy's neck and knocking their heads together so that Kendall could feel his skin, "Look, no more fever."  
  
Kendall stepped back, his expression doubtful, "If you say so."  
  
"I do. I really, really do."  
  
"Fine," he made a face at James, "You ready to head out, then?"  
  
For a second, James didn't want to say anything. Like maybe if he didn't open his mouth, they could stay there, in a dingy motel in the middle of nowhere. Like the real world wouldn't just continue.  
  
It was ridiculous. Afraid of living, afraid of dying. James wondered if it would be like this his entire life. Taking one step and second guessing himself, weighing the consequences and following through and the immediate tang of regret that followed.  
  
Except then Kendall smiled at him, fierce and reassuring, protective and sweet. In the sunlight filtering through the window, his eyes were the blue-white-gray of an ice floe.  
  
James stopped wondering. It wasn't like he could do anything to change any of it. Not now.  
  
"Yeah. Let's go."

\---

  
They drove until early afternoon, when the sky turned a light silver gray, clouds looming heavy on the horizon. The whole ride had been a steady stream of friendly bickering and conversation about nothing, but they'd caught a soft rock radio station a few miles into South Dakota, and from there, everything went sort of quiet. Not in a bad way; just companionable silence.

  
"It's going to snow," Kendall said quietly; the first time he'd said anything in nearly an hour. And snow it did, a few miles later. The soft hush of flakes brushing across the windshield was accompanied by the slap of the wipers obliterating their presence.  
  
"We should stop. Probably," James yawned. Breakfast had been a couple of Twinkies and soda from a gas station convenience store, and when they finally spotted a restaurant that looked half decent, his stomach growled in response. Kendall grinned at the sound.  
  
Inside, the place was a disaster. The décor was a mish mash of red brick facades half devoured by fake foliage and hideous forest green walls, adorned with posters of old Hollywood stars who looked like too many broken dreams had stolen all their glamour away. Off white stained glass lamps with brown and yellow flowers hung from the ceiling. Every antique wooden table was set with burgundy vinyl cloths printed over in a white pattern. There was a pool table in the back and feel good country pop songs blared over the radio.  
  
It was like someone had tried for this aged, old family feel and ended up with…tired.  
  
"Atmospheric," Kendall observed, with a twist to his lips that suggested he meant anything but. A group of rowdy teenagers sat in one corner, yelling and wrestling over the salt shakers. Kendall pursed his lips at them, but didn't say anything. The expression looked weird on him, because it was so out of place.  
  
It wasn't so long ago that the four of them would have done the same thing, tumbling over each other like puppies in a pile to become king of the ketchup bottle. James felt this pull of homesickness, and he'd never realized what a physical feeling it was. It made him nauseous with yearning.  
  
They sat down and ordered up some burgers. The waitress barely spared them a second glance. Kendall checked his phone three times, an apologetic smile on his lips as he explained, "Grandma. She's getting worried."  
  
"It won't be long now."  
  
"No," Kendall agreed, "It won't."  
  
When the Studio first bought the mansion, Mrs. Knight had put up one hell of a fight. She didn't care that it was the norm in young Hollywood to venture out on your own the second you turned eighteen. She didn't care that in six months, if they'd never become superstars, Kendall would've been heading off to college. She didn't even care that they could afford all the private security and personal trainers and chefs they needed.  
  
All she knew was that her little boy was growing up, still. Like she'd expected the process to stop after their failed experiment in mansion-sitting.  
  
The only reason she'd caved at all was because Katie wanted to stay at the Palmwoods school, and she had a scary-good puppy face. She made her eyes go all tragic, and Kendall used his best pleading tone, and finally, reluctantly, she'd conceded that they could have their _mancave playpen_ _mansion_ , or whatever it was. Even then, they'd had to promise bi-weekly pit stops at the Palmwoods, so she could make sure they hadn't suddenly contracted the plague or become crackheads or anything weird. Which was fine with them.  
  
Someone had to do the laundry, and any time they paid someone, they never seemed to get James's boxers right.  
  
But Mrs. Knight had not been having any of it when Kendall asked to get an apartment alone in Minnesota. Famous or not, he was still an eighteen year old boy in high school, and she wouldn't allow him to live by himself. Kendall could have argued it. For some people, eighteen was plenty old enough. Hell, even the United States government recognized it as legal. But Kendall and James had been raised to believe that you weren't an adult until your parents said so, and Kendall had way too much respect for his mom to argue with her over something that didn't even matter that much.  
  
Besides, his grandma would totally dote on him.  
  
They talked about hockey stats and the new song Gustavo had been working on for the past month and the time Carlos tried to jump into the Palmwoods pool from the roof. Little things. James was just glad they were talking again, really. He planned on savoring it for as long as possible.  
  
Their food came, and he fell upon it with the all the voraciousness a teenage boy could muster. He was stuffing the last bite into his mouth when Kendall spoke, out of the blue.  
  
"What do you think would've happened if we'd never gone to LA?"  
  
James shrugged, a bit of a shudder running through the movement, "I spend considerable time and effort avoiding ever thinking about that scenario."  
  
"Why?" Kendall asked, shoving a fry in his mouth in his mouth, "S'not like you could go back and change it."  
  
" _Thank. God_."  
  
Which was really all James had to say on that matter.  
  
"It doesn't seem like a bad idea to me."  
  
"Because _you_ are an athletic genius."  
  
"You're a pretty amazing player yourself," Kendall replied, looking entirely too pleased with himself.  
  
James rolled his eyes, "Alright, I'm good, but going pro was never my dream. I never had the passion for it."  
  
"You always seemed pretty _passionate_ on the ice to me," Kendall raised his eyes to meet James's gaze, and he felt heat settle low in his stomach. Eye contact was one of the first big things they taught you in show business. It's what distinguished superstars from the mundane, separated gods from men. James had caught on quick; how to meet someone's eyes without ever actually looking at them. But with Kendall, it was different. He couldn't _not_ look. His whole being gravitated towards the intensity of his best friend's gaze.  
  
"I love the game. But it's not what I want to do with my life. Even if Big Time Rush never happened, music's _everything_ to me. If we didn't have the band, right about now I'd be doing anything I could to graduate and get the hell out of Minnesota."  
  
Kendall took a sip of his drink, appraising, "And here I am, trying so hard to get back."  
  
James kept his gaze steady, "It's not your fault that we want different things."  
  
"All we used to want was a sturdier blanket fort."  
  
"And for Carlos to stop eating all of the chips."  
  
Kendall snorted his agreement  
  
"Do you-" he made a distressed noise, and James felt like he was perched on the edge of a cliff. There was nothing right about the way   
Kendall was looking at him, and he was truly, honestly scared of whatever Kendall was about to say. After a beat, the words came, "-think   
you would have kissed me? If we were still home?"  
  
The words were like an arrow piercing James's skin, flint, obsidian, splintered wood. He imagined he could see the flutter of feathers and beads as it hit its mark.  
  
"Kendall," he rolled his friend's name over his tongue. The feel of it in his mouth was strange. The realization of strangeness was stranger still. He raked a hand through his hair and said, "I don't know."  
  
Kendall groaned, and said, "Why are there so many things we can't seem to figure out? Do you think that changes, when we get older?"  
  
James had no fucking idea. He thought life had been easier when he was young, and he didn't know what wanting was. When the tiny niche he'd carved out in the world was enough. When he took love for granted, because it was so freely given.  
  
"I think if it did, life would get awfully boring."  
  
"Can't have that. I don't know if- I would have kissed you. If we hadn't been in LA. If we hadn't been at that bar. If you didn't have that face-"  
  
"Hey. I've always had this face. You can't blame anything on my face."  
  
"-that get when you're drunk," Kendall finished with a wry grin.  
  
"Oh," James wanted to return the grin, but what Kendall had said was niggling at him, worming its way through his brain. This was all getting dangerously close to The Conversation that Kendall had been trying to have with him for the past week, but he couldn't help asking,   
"So…you're actually not trying to forget it anymore? The kiss?"  
  
The blond sighed, lowering his chin onto his forearms, leaning on the table like a scolded child, but never breaking eye contact.  
  
"The thing about forgetting is that it doesn't work very well when the thing you're trying to forget is all you ever think about. That's why I asked about LA. It bothers me; that I don't know if things would've been different, if we'd never left."  
  
Personally, James thought never leaving sounded horrible. If they'd been home, and this had somehow still happened, chances were they'd have gone through a stalemate all of senior year, and then maybe run away to college, just to be rid of each other.  
  
"I don't know how this works," Kendall explained, his face miserable, "I don't know how you go through your entire life thinking one thing, one way, and then change all of it. Like flicking a switch."  
  
"Don't ask me," James spread his hands open. It felt like a risk, telling the truth, but he didn't know what else to do, "I think subconsciously, I've always felt this way."  
  
"About me?" Kendall looked startled.  
  
"Well, yeah. I mean, you've been the most important person in my life practically since the first time you nearly knocked my teeth out. I guess I don't do things half assed; I couldn't be hopelessly dedicated to you without, you know, falling for you."  
  
"But did you realize it before I-" Kendall paused. James wanted to hear the rest of that sentence, but he wasn't going to push him. The worst thing anyone could do to a teenage boy was pry.  
  
"No. Not completely. Because the only guy I was ever into at that point was you. And I didn't know there was another way to be with you, until you showed me."  
  
"James-" Kendall took a deep breath, and James knew this was it, the thing he'd been dreading, the moment he'd been avoiding with   
religious fervor, "Why haven't you asked me why I ki-"  
  
At that moment, one of the teenagers made a loud, obnoxious noise, and Kendall turned to face them with a gigantic scowl, like maybe he wanted to shut them up with his fists. James winced; that was the last thing he needed; Kendall dead in a tavern in the middle of nowhere, like some wayward prince lost before his time.  
  
Truth was, James kind of wanted to thank the kid. Of course Kendall wanted to talk in earnest, about what things _meant_ and what their _next step_ would be, but what was the point when James knew what he'd say? He wanted to keep this easy charade of friendship up as long as possible, at least until Kendall was standing on his grandmother's doorstep.  
  
"Dude, let's just go."  
  
"I'm not done with my fries."  
  
James rolled his eyes and grabbed the remaining few, stuffing them in his mouth with all the delicacy of a trash compactor. He mumbled,   
"You are now."  
  
"Right," Kendall blinked, "Right. So…you want to drive?"  
  
"I'm pretty sure when I suggested that idea yesterday, your exact words were Never. Again," James tried to imitate Kendall's solemn, scary tone, "Which is kind of harsh, considering it's _my_ car."  
  
"I may have reconsidered. Two days on the road will do that to a man."  
  
"You're a man now?"  
  
"Oh yeah."  
  
They paid the bill and walked out to the car. The snow had stopped, and the clouds were beginning to thin, all the way into the distance, to Minnesota. Like they were clearing a path for the two of them.  
  
When they clambered inside the Saab, Kendall propped his feet up on the dashboard, "Try not to run into anything."  
  
"Thanks. Good pep talk."  
  
"I do try," he grinned, cracking the window open.  
  
"Dude, what? It's freezing."  
  
"Oh, come on. Remember when Logan first got his license?"  
  
James did. He remembered that they all climbed into Logan's mom's SUV, her curled up in the back seat with head phones and a novel, giving them absolute free reign. Mostly because she was terrified of her son's abrupt turns and inability to go over five miles per an hour, but it didn't matter. They'd turned the radio as high as it could go, until the music beat through their bodies, beneath their ribs, a second heartbeat. The heat was blasting, but the windows were all down, like they were living in this bubble of extreme heat and cold, the two clashing together in a shivery sensation. They all sang along at the top of their lungs.  
  
"Sure," James said with a fond grin, "I remember a lot of things.  
  
"That so? I thought the only things you could be bothered to remember involved fashion, music, and girls?"  
  
"Hey! _That's_ your opinion of me? Should I be insulted?"  
  
"Nope. _That'_ s what you told Logan last week when he asked where you hid the remote."  
  
"Excuse me if I didn't want to watch the Discovery Channel. I swear to god, the only sex Logan's ever witnessed is between elephants in   
Africa."  
  
"Alright. Pop quiz. Do you remember when we beat the Ravens and almost went to Nationals?"  
  
"Yeah, except at the last minute the ref said our center forward cheated," James snorted.  
  
"Gold star. And I _did not_ cheat," Kendall sniffed, "He was biased."  
  
"Biased? How exactly? Did he get a whiff of your feet in the locker room?"  
  
"He was that one kid's dad."  
  
"Riiight," James arched an eyebrow, "We were twelve. You really need to get over it already."  
  
Kendall said a rude word accompanied by a middle finger salute, "I'll work on that."  
  
"Do you remember when you shoved my face in my birthday cake, and my stepmom was about to beat you down with a wooden spoon?"  
  
"Ha, and then you threw some at me and it hit one of her collector's plates and she wanted to _murder_ you? Good fucking times. Okay, my turn, would you rather fuck Jenny Tinkler or that one girl, the head cheerleader, what was her name?"  
  
"Who cares about her name, you've seen her boobs, right?"  
  
It went like that the rest of the ride, stories and comparisons and a thousand million memories of things clear and hazy in James's mind. It was weird, the things that stood out, painted in every color and still sharp as the day they happened and what had gotten lost, yellowed and faded like an old photograph. James wondered if one day they'd sit together and tell this story, their road trip across the country, interwoven with high school memories and the tale of their world tour; if one day every mistake he'd made on this damnable trip would be laid bare for friends and family.  
  
He wondered if any of them would look at him with accusing eyes and ask what made James think a thousand miles on the road together with his unrequited crush would be okay.  
  
The second they crossed state lines, James felt his lungs open up, like his body recognized that they were home. He pressed his foot to the gas pedal, taking the car to its limits as the dusky sky settled over the road, fringed by gunmetal clouds.  
  
"Geez, slow down. I feel like you're trying to get rid of me," Kendall joked, and despite their easy banter about the past, James stared out the window, resolutely not answering. His hands gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly.  
  
Couldn't Kendall see how much drawing the trip out was hurting them both? James, because he longed and yearned and never received anything in return, and Kendall because he couldn't seem to decide whether to acknowledge that James felt something that he could never reciprocate, or to pretend nothing had happened at all. Kendall prided himself on being a generally good guy. James didn't want to keep being the person who confused him, who made him feel like utter shit.  
  
Kendall was quiet for a minute, his smile melting away. Then he said, "I can't believe this. Five minutes ago you were in love with me- or something. Now you want to- what? Leave me in my front yard and forget I ever existed?"  
  
"Calm down," James ordered, because wasn't he supposed to be the Dramatic One here?  
  
"I can't calm down when you insist on making no sense," Kendall gritted out, and James knew it wasn't fair. From Kendall's point of view, he was probably certifiably insane. James kept making moves towards him, but he refused to have any sort of meaningful conversation about why said moves were _completely unacceptable_ , he danced around the subject constantly, and then he got mad whenever Kendall actually tried to make sense of it? Yeah. Insane.  
  
Which didn't change anything at all. Kendall was giving him these eyes, these If You Love Me You Will Immediately Tell Me What The Fuck Is Going On eyes, but it wasn't going to work. Love wasn't about being compliant, about bowing down to someone else's will. Sure, James was willing to compromise about most things, and sure, sometimes all he wanted was to make Kendall happy, even if he disagreed with the reasoning. But if all he felt for Kendall was the desire to whisper sweet nothings into his ear, to cuddle and make love like some romantic comedy reject, what was the point? He loved Kendall so much more than all of that, and that was exactly why he wasn't planning on caving.  
  
"You're the one who wanted everything over and done with."  
  
"That was before-"  
  
"Before what, Kendall? Before we had a good day? Before you realized you weren't going to have to deal with me again for six months, soon enough?"  
  
"Before I realized I was acting like a jackass. James," Kendall was staring out the window, watching snow banks melt into the sky, into amethyst and plum and aubergine and midnight blue, streaked with slate gray clouds and the constant, looming threat of an ice storm. There was still the shadow of a bruise on his cheekbone, and James had to fight to remind himself that the punch that caused it only happened two days ago.  
  
Not for the first time, he realized how fucked up all of this was. Things had been so much easier when James wouldn't let himself _think_.  
  
"James," Kendall repeated, but he didn't actually follow up with other words, and James wasn't sure how to interpret the emotions flashing across his face. So he focused on driving, on reaching a place that he used to call home, and soon enough, he reached it.  
  
His first thought when they reached the familiar exit, was that he had forgotten what winter was like.  
  
The teeth and claws, of course, the way the cold could slice straight down to his bones, creep beneath his skin and nerves and muscle tissue and make him feel like he'd never get warm again. But also the icy clarity of a clear night. The way the lights would sparkle like diamonds, peeking out from under the treetops so that his entire hometown glittered.  
  
It wasn't anything like LA, where the lights always looked the same, in the dead of winter or on a warm summer night; like fireflies dancing in the distance. They doled out savage beauty sparingly out there, like they could control nature.  
  
It was familiar and beautiful and _home_.  
  
Soon enough, he pulled the car in front of Victorian three story, clapboard painted in a cheery yellow that was more of a burnished gold at night, lit from the pooled porch light. It looked out of place in a neighborhood of red brick and darker palates.  
  
"Well…" Kendall said, looking up at the house, "We're here."


	9. Come On, Allons-y, Let's Go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When James left Minnesota the following morning, he could still feel Kendall's skin burning beneath his fingertips, hear the little hitched breaths and the way he chanted, "Fuck, James, please," like a prayer.

"Do you want to stay over?"  
  
"It's late," James shook his head, "I don't want to scare your grandma."  
  
"You won't scare her. She's a tough old broad."  
  
"Yeah, but," James bit his lip, and tried to string a sentence together in a way that would sound non-offensive. Less like, 'I can't wait to get you out of my sight' and more like, 'I'm trying to be polite and make our goodbye painless'.  
  
Only, he wasn't very good with the whole tact thing.  
  
Probably because tact was for dishonest losers who didn't have am- _azing_ hair.  
  
"Come on," Kendall goaded him, "I bet you a grand that she still only has a foldout couch for guests and no central heating. It'll be just like one of our old sleepovers."  
  
They'd had countless sleepovers, lying tangled beneath flannel sheets, trying to make out shapes in the ceiling while snow drifted down to the earth in icy spirals. James remembered waking up with Kendall's warmth pressed against his then-skinny back, their legs twisted together and the smell of apple strudel in the air.  
  
"I don't think it's a good idea," he said bluntly, a note of finality in his voice. Kendall's face fell.  
  
"Alright," he said, voice gruff, "I guess I'll- see you in six months?"  
  
He felt a sudden note of panic, strong and swift building up his spine. Six months was such a long time.  
  
He nodded, "Yeah. Six months."  
  
Kendall climbed out of the car and dug his bag out of the trunk. James listened to the sound of him moving and gripped the steering wheel tight, wanting this all to be over already.  
  
And then it was.  
  
Kendall said goodbye with his knuckles, rapping on the windshield and throwing him a half smile. He began his trek up the walk to the door, and wow, James hadn't even thought about how he was going to have to drive home alone. The car felt empty without Kendall's familiar weight.  
  
When Kendall reached the door, he turned to wave, and James watched, quiet, soaking up one last image of his best friend, haloed in the golden porch light. He turned the key in the ignition.  
  
It was time to man up. It was time to go home.  
  
Or, actually, it was time to find somewhere to rest his head for the night, because it was long past an hour where reasonable human beings were up and about, and there was no way he was going to drive through the wilds of Middle America in the middle of the night. There was some freaky shit out there; axe murderers and cannibals and an endless train of dark thoughts. He pulled away from the curb, allowing himself one glance in the rearview mirror. Kendall was already inside.  
  
James thought about heading to his house, to his dad and his stepmom and the warm glow of their love. It made him feel nauseous.  
  
He could've headed up to his mom's. He loved his mom's house, with its wild colors and comfortable old couches and the spots of dust she missed when she went on a cleaning spree. He loved the feel of his old dog sitting on his toes and the rattling sound the kettle made when it was done boiling on the stove. He loved the taste of the weird teas she picked up in the health section of the grocery store and the way she could smile so wide even when she was so lonely. But he didn't want to go there. He didn't want to have to hurt in the face of her strength.  
  
Besides, she moved out of town a while ago, and it was another three hours, at least, to her house. A hotel was his best option.  
  
He didn't want to go to a hotel.  
  
By and large, he wanted to emo out, to have one night to think about the past week and then never have to do it again. Because he was not going to let this bring him down. He was not going to go back to California looking like someone just ran over his puppy. He had a reputation to protect. And James knew that he was going to be fine. Maybe a little sad.  
  
Maybe a lot sad, a lot of the time. But he was a half decent actor, and if you act happy long enough, you start to feel that way.  
  
He hoped.  
  
James parked on the side of the road near the high school. He thought about leaving the car running, if only because the idea of coming back to a working heater was more than tempting, but he sighed and twisted the key; listened to the engine die. The orange yellow glare of headlights against the snow faded.  
  
At first, he tried crunching towards the bleachers in the football field, but he had too many memories there that made his heart pound. He'd given Kendall so many shards of his life, and he wondered if that would ever change. Like one day he'd be able to straighten up and say I'm done giving pieces of myself away. More likely, he'd grow old and empty and- okay.  
  
Trying to be optimistic kind of sucked.  
  
He wasn't very good at it _at all_.  
  
James glared up at the sky, and was rewarded with a big fat snowflake to the eye. He blinked, and probably cursed a little more loudly than the late hour warranted, but it was cold. Stupid snow.  
  
California didn't have this problem. The only snow they had there was up at Big Bear, or the fake stuff at Mountain High, where girls skied in their bikinis and they had those cool like, subway gates to get on to the lifts.  
  
The clouds were so low he felt like maybe he could touch them, if he stretched enough, jumped high enough, could be enough. He wasn't enough for Kendall, but he didn't even bother thinking about that.  
  
His feet took him before he could process what they were doing, and he was jogging, and then he was running, and he could feel his heart pounding in his ribcage, trying to break through bone and skin and escape out into the world. He was running so hard and so fast on the slippery ground that his breath was coming out in panty little gasps, and he ran every day, he knew how to regulate his breathing, but he didn't, wouldn't, _couldn't_ , because if he stopped he would scream.  
  
At the top of his lungs, he would scream and shout, and it would be joy and pain and everything. It would be like singing, exposing his soul to the whole wide world, to all of fucking Minnesota at three in the morning, and James wasn't sure he'd ever be able to hide it away again without the protective barrier of his friends crowding around him after a concert. It'd be like walking around with his insides exposed, and he didn't want that.  
  
So he ran.  
  
Faster, harder, until the houses and the dolphin shaped mailboxes and the trees, the pines and sycamores and maples and bare branched things he couldn't name blurred into formless streaks of color and shadow. This was it, this was a rush, this was what the band was all about. Adrenaline and emotion and color and sound all tied into one messy, amazing package, thrilling, terrifying. Crazy and fast and too much, over too soon.  
  
When his feet stopped, he didn't know where he was.  
  
Except he did. He could never forget this place.  
  
Home. Or what used to pass for it, back when his mom and his dad were still together, and they locked up their lives in a tiny trailer park by a trickling creek. Back when James best remembered being happy.  
  
The air felt deceptively warm, still, although he knew if he stood outside for more than ten minutes he'd probably start to feel the cold all the way to his bones. It was one of those nights where the only movement was the snowfall, the rustle of flakes hitting the ground and the crunch of his boots, imprinting the powder, slipping on icy asphalt. No cutting winter winds, no shifting leaves. No LA traffic or the hum of electric lights. James held out his hands, catching what he could, watching it melt. He probably looked like a bit of a moron, but there was no one to watch him except whatever critters were camped out in the forest, and he never really minded attention. He performed better in front of an audience, like he couldn't be real unless someone was watching. It was easier, that way. When he was alone his mind turned in circles, jumping from shallow subject to shallow subject to avoid thinking about anything that might hurt. There was too much out there that would cut you to shreds, if you let it, he knew.  
  
Good thoughts, he reminded himself, happy thoughts. Pirates and mermaids and superstars and- _beer._  
  
Yeah, that was a happy thought.  
  
James really wanted beer. Only, there wasn't a single convenience store open in the state of Minnesota; even the Seven Elevens closed too early for comfort.  
  
Luckily, he grew up in this place, this acre long patch of land with its shining silver spaceship-like homes, with miniature recreations of houses, barely big enough for dolls. Even though he'd been gone a long time, it was rare that people changed around these parts.  
  
No one hit it big or got discovered or even made something of themselves. He recognized the same sad plant pots buried under half an inch of snow, the same broken lawn furniture and rusted grills haphazardly covered by blue tarps. His parents broke the mold, marrying out into a semblance of normalcy.  
  
James didn't think what they had here was ever really so bad.  
  
Not that he'd give up his mansion.  
  
Anyway, he happened to know that the guy in the trailer the third row down worked nights and never locked his door, and maybe it was a bit morally objectionable, being both underage and a thief, but James walked in like he owned the place.  
  
He grabbed a can out of the pathetic mini fridge, it's interior warmer than it was outside, and left a twenty in its place, which was overpaying but would probably make up for the whole trespassing thing.  
  
Maybe it would make the guy wisen up and realize that even in the middle of the dullest state in North America, they didn't live in the 1950s.   
People could be dangerous. They could lay in wait and slit your throat or run off with your plasma screen TV (not that he could afford one).  
  
Or slip you a twenty for a lukewarm can of Natty Ice, but whatever, the moral still held.  
  
The dude probably wouldn't get the message.  
  
James had been doing this since he was a kid, at first for his dad when he was too lazy to stop watching Jeopardy, and then for him and Kendall once they were old enough to be brave. He never left money before, but then, the guy never seemed to mind. Sharing was caring, and all that.  
  
He slipped the can into his coat pocket and took care to shut the door carefully behind him, wary of the telltale clang. Beer dude might not care who trampled around his house, but the neighbors got suspicious, and some of them owned shotguns. They might not have minded James running around the old park, but they might've had an issue with him breaking and entering into an empty house. Why tempt fate?  
  
He crunched his way over to the dull old trailer that used to be his. The façade was clapboard, faded, peeling white paint that his dad had covered with metal siding that made it easier to climb up onto the flat metal roof. It looked empty, which wasn't surprising. He was pretty sure his dad still paid for the spot, just in case of- something.  
  
James wasn't sure what something was supposed to be. The day him and James's mom got back together, or when James's career failed, or- he didn't know. He'd never asked. He didn't want to.  
  
The siding was rusted from disuse. The paint could barely even be called paint anymore. He stood next to an old pine tree, glancing between the shell of his old home and the word 'Diamond' etched onto the tree's base. His dad had written that, years before James was born. The grooves were formed painstakingly with his old pocket knife, but now it seemed that the scars he'd created in the bark were finally healing.  
  
The word was barely legible, anymore.  
  
James used to hate his last name. It invited way too much teasing. Kendall called him Sparkles for years. It got annoying, real fast. And god, the nicknames got more horrific from there; Blingster and Iceman and mother fucking Cubic Zirconia. Which really, unfortunately rhymed with pubic, and you can just imagine where that went.  
  
James tried to retaliate, but seriously, funny plays on the last name knight were kind of hard to come by. Sir Lancelot wasn't all that insulting.   
When they were fourteen and Kendall rolled out of his house with a smooth, 'Sup, Glitterati?', James may have finally just cracked. And by cracked, he meant punched Kendall so hard he lost two teeth and people started calling Child Services on the Knight family, which was only gratifying until he saw how pissed Mrs. Knight got.  
  
He sighed and climbed to the top of the old trailer, just a husk now, devoid of any life. He did what he could to clear the metal surface of the roof of snow, but his efforts didn't yield much success. His jeans were going to soak through. Oh well.  
  
Let the drinking commence.  
  
He popped the tab of the beer, realizing that this wasn't exactly the best, memory free zone he could have visited either. He and Kendall had spent so much time up here.  
  
It used to be enough, and he's not sure when that changed, and-  
  
A dull thud caught his attention.  
  
James peered over the edge of the trailer to see if he was about to get intimate with one of the neighbor's shotguns, beer balanced precariously in one hand.  
  
It wasn't a neighbor.  
  
Kendall was looking up at him, eyelashes coated with snowflakes, a sheepish grin playing over his lips.  
  
"I figured I'd find you here," he toed the dull metallic siding, clumps of snow raining down from the roof. He had his hands shoved in the pocket of his too-tight jeans, and no coat at all. Like he'd decided to walk three miles on a whim. Like this was any other spur of the moment adventure, and not the most important conversation they were ever going to have.  
  
Because it was, James was suddenly sure. This moment, right here, it was so, so important.  
  
James watched, wary, as Kendall scrambled up to the roof, plopping down beside him, shivering.  
  
"You. Are a moron," he said, and maybe that wasn't the best lead-in for a significant talk, but his voice sounded fond. He reached for James's beer.  
  
"I'm a moron? I'm wearing a jacket," James tugged pointedly on his coat, even though it was thin and more than a little impractical for the weather.  
  
After a beat, he offered Kendall the can, and his gloves, because even with the fingers cut off, it was better than resting his skin on wet, freezing metal.  
  
He already knew his friend would turn down his jacket if he tried. That was the kind of guy he was.  
  
With a quick flash of a grin, the blond accepted both. He took a long sip and then set the can down beside him. Kendall drew his knees up to his chest, boots squeaking against the surface, "We can never go back, can we?"  
  
"To California?" James shrugged, swinging the car keys around his index finger, "Sure we can. It's easy."  
  
"That's not what I mean, jerk."  
  
"I know," James snorted, trying to look up past the canopy of trees that lined the park, trying to see through the fog-like clouds, all the way to the stars, "You have your mopey face on."  
  
"I do not have a mopey face."  
  
"Sure you do. Your puppy eyes give Katie a run for her money."  
  
"Do me a favor? Shut up."  
  
"But that would disrupt the melodramatic conversation we're trying to have," James slumped back against the trailer's roof, "Can we just not do this?"  
  
"We've been _not doing this_ across the better part of the country. James, I don't want our entire friendship to go down the drain just because of one stupid mistake."  
  
"It wasn't stupid. A mistake, maybe," James said defensively.  
  
"I'm not talking about that," Kendall sighed, "I'm talking about why I ki-"  
  
"Don't," he said, voice strangled.  
  
"Why I kissed you," Kendall barreled on, the words ringing in the still air long after they were said.  
  
James scowled at his boots and refused to meet Kendall's eyes. He didn't want Kendall to take that away from him; that one perfect moment. He wanted to guard it, always.  
  
But he didn't have a choice anymore.  
  
"James, I didn't know you remembered. All this time, you never brought it up. I thought-"  
  
"What exactly was I supposed to say?" James asked, chancing a look at his face. Kendall took another sip of the beer and frowned, dimples deepening.  
  
"You have no idea how scared I was the next day. I kept waiting for you to, I don't know, punch me? I was terrified as fuck. But you never said anything at all."  
  
"I was hung over. Talking made my head spin."  
  
"Well," Kendall ducked his head, "I didn't- I _still_ don't know why exactly I kissed you. That day. You were there, and you were- beautiful."  
  
James glanced up again, and this time he let himself meet Kendall's green-gray gaze. He wasn't sure what to say, or if he was even supposed to say anything.  
  
"And the thing was, I'd been thinking about how gorgeous you were, are, for a long time before that. I wasn't sure it meant anything. That night, I guess…It was _stupid_. I was fucking around, seeing how far I could go, and- I haven't thought of anything else since. You're the reason that things with Jo didn't work out, and it was fine as long as I thought _you_ didn't remember."  
  
"You really, honestly thought I could forget _that_?

"Well, you were acting like such a fucking lush. You said it yourself- you puked for like, eighty hours the next day. I could hope, couldn't I?"

James cracked a smile.  
  
The snow was beginning to let up, but his pants and jacket were soaked through. He could feel the chill all the way to his core, but he didn't think he would've been able to move if he wanted to. He was morbidly fascinated by what Kendall was saying; the truth, after all this time.  
  
It didn't make him any less scared of hearing it, of course. But there were no rowdy kids or giant boulders or static filled radios to ward off this conversation. There was nothing but him and Kendall, and the intense, steady weight of Kendall's gaze as he asked seriously, "Why _didn't_ you ever say something?"  
  
He shrugged, "I figured you'd bring it up when you were ready."  
  
"Well," Kendall repeated, rueful, and now he wasn't looking at James at all. He was staring out into the shifting shadows of pine trees and trailers, the black on blue on gray of the park, silent and unmoving, "Afterwards- things with Jo went to shit, obviously. I had this whole- identity crisis, or whatever. The whole time, I figured you were totally oblivious. And the thing is, James, I got over it. I got myself back to a place where I was comfortable again."  
  
"And then I kissed you."  
  
"You kissed me," Kendall agreed, "And I realized you knew, and I thought maybe you hated me at first, that you were fucking with me somehow. But then- then you were so upset, and I knew it wasn't a joke."  
  
"You should've known I would never fuck with you like that, Kendall."  
  
"I know. It just- if you weren't joking, it meant that you'd had feelings for me for the past year and a half, feelings _I_ was completely oblivious to. And then I made you think that I'd forgotten, and, god, I hated that I'd hurt you. So I…"  
  
"Blew me?" James offered, and now he could remember Kendall's mouth on his dick with perfect clarity.  
  
Kendall reddened, "That. All of a sudden I had all these feelings I hadn't thought about in over year. I was worried that I was gay. I was worried that you somehow, I don't know, liked me because of something I did. Because I'd somehow forced you to when I kissed you in that alley."  
  
"You didn't force me to do anything."  
  
"Yeah. Things weren't supposed to get this complicated," Kendall raked a hand through his hair, pale fingers and forearms a contrast against James's black gloves, "When I said yes to this trip, I didn't think this would happen. None of this was supposed to be about me and you."  
  
James nodded, "I know. I didn't mean for it to turn out like this. Honestly, Kendall, I- all I wanted was for you to live your dream."  
  
"Yeah. I know that too."  
  
There was quiet, for a minute. Long enough that James's heart had dropped somewhere near his stomach. He was so damned tense. He hated it.  
  
"So, what? We just…say goodbye? Get some space for a couple months and then pretend none of this ever happened?"  
  
Kendall shook his head, "I don't think you get it."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Kendall leaned back, elbows resting against the roof, "James, I liked you so much. But I couldn't- I didn't think it was enough. I couldn't figure out how to tell you without ruining our friendship. And the more I fell for you, the more I resented you for it, a little. More and more, with every day that passed. I told myself it was never going to happen, and I convinced myself of it. I had so many reasons."  
  
James's shoulders were inching up near his ears, to ward off the chill, to ward off his words.  
  
"And then you blew them all away. The weird thing is, I can't remember a single one anymore," Kendall looked at him. Really, really looked at him.  
  
James felt his breath catch in his throat.  
  
"What are you saying?"  
  
"I'm saying- I still want you."  
  
James swallowed. He'd been miserable for so many days in a row that he didn't know what to do with this, with happiness when it was so freely offered.  
  
Kendall was still talking, "I mean, if you still- if you're, um, interested. Which I hope you are, but."  
  
He watched Kendall nibble on his lip, and for the life of him, he couldn't think of a single appropriate response. Of course he still wanted Kendall. He'd never stopped wanting him. But James had spent the last week, the last epically, tragically long week convincing himself that it didn't matter what he wanted.  
  
He knew he was supposed to be excited about this turn of events, but he didn't feel excited. He felt cold, and confused, and more than a little pissed off.  
  
"So that's it? We go through all of this, and you expect to, what, kiss and make up?"  
  
Kendall's eyes widened, "Dude, if you don't want to, say no. You don't have to get so angry."  
  
"Yeah, actually, I really, really do. Do you even have any idea what I've been going through? The things I've been thinking?"  
  
Instead of looking apologetic, Kendall sighed and said, "Probably. Some of it. A year and a half, remember? Maybe not the part where the guy you're in love with turns out to be a total asshole, but honestly, even if you had, I already know that you can be a diva sometimes, and you know I have this problem expressing myself, so you maybe _should_ have expected-"  
  
"Wait, what?"  
  
"What?" Kendall scratched behind his ear, chugging down the last of the beer, "What did I say? I don't mean that you're a complete asshole, asshole. Just that most people wouldn't put up with some of the shit you pull, and me too, probably, and-"  
  
"Not that part. We're both jerks, tell me something new."  
  
"Valid. Okay, what part of my word vomit are you referring to? I babble when I'm nervous, alright?"  
  
"Kendall."  
  
"I honestly have no idea what you're-"  
  
"The guy you're in love with? I never said anything about love. Not even once."  
  
He'd thought it. A lot. He'd even let Kendall crack jokes about it. But James had never once personally given a voice to that word. He'd been too scared that everything would implode.  
  
"Oh," Kendall ducked his head, crossing his arms over his knees to lean his chin on his forearms. With a sideways glance, he mumbled,   
"Maybe that's just me then."  
  
"Stop fucking with me."  
  
"Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying? I'm _not_."  
  
Slowly, James said, "What you're talking about- it's impossible. We can't- you're going to be here, and I'm going to be in fucking Hollywood and-"  
  
"I'll fly out on the weekends. We'll make it work."  
  
"That's not-"  
  
"James, if I didn't want to do this, I wouldn't do it," Kendall told him earnestly. And then, like something out of a fucking memory, Kendall lifted James's gloveless hand, slid it up beneath his t-shirt, up his goosebump covered chest and said, "Believe me."  
  
Kendall's heartbeat was strong and steady as a bassline, a constant pulse beneath his fingertips, not the hummingbird flutter James was used to in girls. James swallowed again. He _couldn't_ believe this. He couldn't believe how hard he'd wanted Kendall to say the words he was saying, to look at him the way he was looking at James right that second. He thought about all the times he'd wanted to punch Kendall, or pin him against the wall, or somehow force him to acknowledge the things James felt. How he never could have _made_ this happen, because we never have true power over another person. Not really.  
  
Oh sure, there are ways; fear and intimidation and the threat of death. But it's impossible to conquer someone completely, to take over every nook and crevice. At best, they submit and hide it all away. At worst, they break, and the shiny bits just...disappear. And sometimes, James thought, we want it, so damn much, the power to make someone else stay. Other times we're glad for not having it, because then, impossibly, people surprise you.  
  
Kendall surprised him.  
  
It came down to this, to all the almosts and near misses between them.  
  
James was teetering on the edge, and he could choose to lean forward, to take what Kendall offered, or he could run away, all the way back across the country in a stream of blazing taillights and fear like a thundercloud, shading everything he'd ever do, for the rest of his life.  
  
"You're really, really sure? Because this is a huge step and-" James said, and he hated the way his voice had pitched, but he felt small under Kendall's gaze, small and warm and infinitely precious, a gemstone, a freshly cut diamond.  
  
"James? Shut up and kiss me."  
  
He kept talking, "And I don't think that-"  
  
Kendall grabbed hold of his chin, established eye contact and enunciated, "Shut. Up."  
  
And then he kissed them. And James thought, okay, maybe he had a point.  
  
Kendall kissed hot and wet and dirty, his tongue strong, his lips bruising, his lungs stealing the last of James's breath away. His mouth moved rough over the surface of James's, and he tasted like pine and snow and the bubble-fizz of stolen beer, like an ocean a thousand miles away and the metallic sizzle of a flashbulb. Kendall's hand carded through his hair. His fingertips felt like the crackle-hiss of neon lights, like the lung-crushing hit of a puck to the stomach.  
  
"This doesn't make everything okay," James said, trying to pull away, strangled, "We have to- to talk, and um, stuff."  
  
He was not ashamed to admit the last part came out a bit of a squeak, but Kendall's hands were resting against his belt buckle, grazing the shape of his half-interested cock through denim.  
  
"Mm," Kendall agreed, biting the hollow of his neck, teeth gentle, tongue wet, mouth sucking, and wow that was intensely distracting, "I imagine we'll have to work at it. Talking, and…stuff. Practice, you know."  
  
He emphasized his words with little flicks of his tongue that made James's mind go kind of blank.  
  
"Practice is good."  
  
"Practice is _excellent_ ," Kendall hummed against his throat, "We should start now."  
  
"See," James tried to pull away, "Your blatant redirection is not helping."  
  
Kendall huffed a laugh and said, "You've spent the last week doing everything you can to not talk to me, and you decide _now_ is the opportune moment for a conversation? Seriously?"  
  
"I have questions. They're important."  
  
"I can think of plenty of things that are way more important right his minute," Kendall pushed him down flat against the roof of the trailer, following the movement. His fingers worked at the front of James's soaking wet coat, and James thought maybe he should reciprocate this, just a little bit, except then Kendall was kneeling in between his legs and it was a little bit frightening, the intensity in his eyes, but mostly it was just fucking hot. And when Kendall leaned down to kiss him James didn't care that it was zero below hell-already-froze-over, and he didn't care that he was probably making noises loud enough that the neighbors could hear, because then Kendall was completely on top of him, their hips fitted together like maybe they should have been doing this for ages now, because it was meant to be. James thrust up a little, tugging at Kendall's shirt and wondering if his friend would actually die of hypothermia if he took it off completely.  
  
He didn't really get to finish the thought, because apparently Kendall didn't know the meaning of taking it slow. His hand was in James's pants, inside his boxers, the button of his jeans still done up and everything and James was thinking maybe he'd even get off on the voyeuristic aspect of it all.  
  
"Come back to my place," Kendall said, and James was finding it really hard to think what with his hand shoved down the front of his jeans, fingers curled around his cock.  
  
"Dude, your grandmother will hear."  
  
"She's old," Kendall shrugged, the corners of his mouth turning into a devilish grin, "She won't hear a thing."  
  
James dug his fingers into the skin over Kendall's hip, rubbing his thigh up, rocking against him, and he swallowed Kendall's groan, letting it vibrate down his throat, all the way to his stomach.  
  
"We're not fucking in your grandmother's house. There is entirely too much wrong with that."  
  
Kendall groaned again, but this time it sounded half pained. He mumbled into James's mouth, "High school is going to be such a cock block. Why am I going back again?"  
  
"Not completely," James murmured, voice spiked with mischief, and with great, great reluctance, he extricated Kendall's hand from his boxers.  
  
"Right," he breathed, dick throbbing with want, "Follow me."  
  
Thank god for the cold. It kept him at bay, and allowed him to climb down the side of the trailer when moving was practically excruciating otherwise. They stumbled the mile or so back to the high school, to James's Saab, cheeks heated and laughing, feet crossing over like they'd just run a marathon.  
  
Every time Kendall looked at him, James was struck by the urge to shove him against a tree and get this over with. But then Kendall would smile this slow, brilliant smile and James thought yeah, he could kind of see the merit of waiting until he could get him into the car; pin him down in the backseat and make him beg for-.  
  
Well. His fingers trembled when he fussed with the keys.  
  
It was freezing inside the Saab, but James couldn't concentrate on that. Kendall was crowding him into the backseat, and he fell back, calves hitting the inside ledge of the door. James let Kendall tumble on top of him, pushing his soaked jacket off of his shoulders in one movement.  
  
Hands on Kendall's hips to catch him, James scooted as far back as he could go. His shoulders hit the door, and Kendall was already scrabbling to rip off his shirt. He obediently lifted his arms, watching the way Kendall's eyes devoured the tan stretch of his stomach, watched until he couldn't see for the fabric. Kendall pulled the tee over his head, and he was half straddling James, doing as best as he could on the uncomfortable seat, one of his legs down in the foot well, but it didn't even matter because they were kissing, and then Kendall was taking off his sopping wet shirt, and he was the most incredible sight in the world.  
  
Never in his entire life had James been so happy for leather seats. They warmed against his skin in minutes, and even though his breath was a visible fog in front of him, he had a half naked Kendall staring at him, hungry, but with a smile pulling at his lips.  
  
And yeah, James knew that sex wasn't the kind of thing a person should take too seriously. He'd done it both ways; laughing, joyful, a girl making him feel like they were sharing a joke, one they both enjoyed too much. He'd been ridden by serious faced girls who made the air go thick with passion, who gave new definitions to the word hot. But he'd never had both, both at the same time. The lightness and the intensity, tangled together like the threads of a dreamcatcher.  
  
He'd never had a breathless laugh caught in his throat combined with a single minded focus on one person, like running through wide open country, screaming at the top of his lungs. Like a roller coaster, reaching its pinnacle, excitement and terror and so much adrenaline his heart felt like it might burst.  
  
"Are your hands cold?" Kendall asked against his lips, and before he could say anything, he lifted James's palm to his mouth, kissing his lifeline. James shivered, and Kendall's mouth quirked. He flipped James's hand, the scratchy-soft fabric of the borrowed gloves he still wore tickling over James's skin.  
  
Carefully, Kendall pulled one of James's fingers towards him, wrapping his lips around the digit. His tongue darted out, soft and wet on the pad of his fingertip, and then, painstakingly slow, he took the whole thing in his mouth, all the way until it bumped against the back of his throat. He looked up through his eyelashes in a move so deliberate, James couldn't help the way it went straight to his dick. He made a guttural noise, low in his chest, and Kendall's eyes were dancing, devilish.  
  
He pulled his hand free of Kendall's warm, hot, tight fucking mouth, because yeah, he really remembered now exactly what that mouth felt like around him, and grabbed at Kendall's face, fingers folding to the shape of his cheekbones, thumbs pressing into his dimples, pulling his face forwards so hard his entire body had to follow.  
  
James kissed him, rough and sloppy, not caring when he only caught half of Kendall's mouth. Kendall leaned into it, lips moving, correcting the angle, his hands pressing against James's chest to keep his precarious balance. The front of his jeans brushed against James's erection, but when James tried to arch into it, Kendall pulled his hips away, inches that James couldn't seem to cross.  
  
Kendall was still kissing him, moving to the line of his jaw, the skin of his throat. James thrust his hips up, looking for friction, looking for a way to stop Kendall from fucking _teasing_. He felt Kendall bite the skin of his jugular, teeth sharp, tongue massaging away the pain, laughter in his breath.  
  
His ear, still fucking frigid from the cold, brushed against James's shoulder, and he had an idea. He looked down at Kendall's other ear, at the pale shell right near James's chin, easily accessible. He nibbled at the top, relishing the way Kendall's body stiffened in surprise, hips dipping low so that James could rub his thigh up between them, catching the lower half of his body. He traced his tongue along the lines of his inner ear, blowing softly against the wet skin to feel Kendall tremble. James nipped at the lobe, and then placed his mouth just below where the bone of his jaw met his skull, kissing the pulse point. The blond stopped his onslaught on James's neck, forehead resting on his shoulder, breath a harsh pant.  
  
Heat crept slowly into James's chest, starting in his stomach and engulfing his heart. He moved his mouth across Kendall's throat, dry kisses that were barely more than a light brush of his lips. He licked a line across the protrusion of bone at his collar, dipped his tongue in the triangle hollow that stretched up to his shoulder. Kendall groaned when he latched on, sucking out a red-purple bruise, the brand of his mouth a garish color against the smattering of freckles so light they were barely even visible. His right hand moved across the flesh of Kendall's stomach, less defined than his own, but somehow infinitely more perfect. A trail of blond hair stood on end when James gently scraped his fingernails against skin, and Kendall's grip on his hip turned bruising. He ran his thumb over the button of Kendall's jeans, trailing the rest of his fingers down the fly, the shape of how much Kendall actually wanted him.  
  
This was so much better than a blowjob in some dark, shady motel. Kendall nipped at his lower lip, scraped his teeth against the skin hard enough that it hurt, soft enough that it made him hungry for more.  
  
He undid the front of Kendall's jeans, slow, letting Kendall run his hands over his skin while he worked. James imagined that Kendall was leaving a mark wherever he touched him, blood reds and dusky blues and marigold orange, yellows so bright and vibrant they could be called gold, the colors of every place they'd passed through, the colors of the land that had given James this, this moment, this miracle.  
  
He wanted to be a canvas, a long stretch of skin for Kendall to paint these fragile things they'd both been feeling for so long. There would be time later to analyze everything Kendall had ever said or done to him, to wonder what he'd missed, how he hadn't seen what was so obviously there. For now James couldn't do anything but push Kendall's jeans and boxers down around his thighs, couldn't shift enough so that Kendall could do more than unbutton James's pants and pull his dick out.  
  
Inside the car, they had their own self contained world, and it was small and cramped and a little bit uncomfortable, but James wouldn't have had it any other way. Neither of them had ever done anything more, not with another guy, but they knew they needed supplies. Even though James hadn't cleaned out the Saab since roughly the day he'd gotten it, he was pretty sure he'd never stocked it with condoms or lube. He wasn't worried. They'd figure something out.  
  
And they did.  
  
It wasn't all that comfortable, and they couldn't do much more than rub up against each other, tiny undulations of their hips while spit-slick hands worked between the two of them. After a while, they were barely even kissing, just breathing against each other's mouths, the windows fogged and opaque around them. They murmured epithets that didn't mean anything at all, but make them both hotter, bodies flushed, need building up their spines.  
  
James could feel electricity sparking at the base of his cock, persistent want spreading like the blush on his skin when he changed the angle, when the head of Kendall's dick moved just right across his.  
  
When Kendall came, James had one thought in his mind.  
 _  
Fucking finally_.  
  
He followed him over with a gasp.  
  
Half an hour later, James finally agreed to sleep at Kendall's grandma's.  
  
They didn't fuck.  
  
They didn't even talk. They collapsed onto the bed in the guest room in a heap, legs and arms tangled, neither caring to rectify the situation.  
  
When James left Minnesota the following morning, he could still feel Kendall's skin burning beneath his fingertips, hear the little hitched breaths and the way he chanted, " _Fuck_ , James, _please_ ," like a prayer.  
  
He left him shining and spent, ready to backtrack across the country to a state full of palm trees and supermodels, fully prepared to do something with his life. He wasn't sure what it would be, but he'd had offers for modeling gigs and acting parts, and the band would always be there if Kendall decided to come back.  
  
And if not, maybe James could start a solo career. He thought about it on the road, from the Dakotas to Wyoming to Arizona to home, the deep green scrub fading to sandstone to red clay cliffs to the familiar blue of the Pacific. He had so many fucking options.  
  
After all, somehow, miraculously, he'd gotten Kendall Knight to fall in love with him.  
  
There wasn't anything he couldn't do.


End file.
